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RUSSIA IN THE FAE EAST 



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THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DAIXAS 
ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 

LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE MACMILLAN CO, OP CANADA. Lm 

TORONTO 



RUSSIA IN THE FAR EAST 



BY 

LEO PASVOLSKY 

AUTHOR OF "THE ECONOMICS OF COMMUNISM" 



I13eto gorfe 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
1922 

All rights reserved 



FEINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



rp-5 



CJOPTRIGHT, 1922, 
By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. 

Set up and printed. Published January, 1922. 



Press of 

J. J. Little & Ives Company 

New York, U. S. A. 



JAN 25 i322 
©GIA654367 



PREFACE 

As this book goes to press, the Washington Confer- 
ence on the Limitation of Armament is still in session, 
with the question of Siberia on that part of the agenda, 
which the Conference has not as jet reached. The 
book, therefore, does not contain the actual decisions 
of the Conference on the Russian question. It appears 
likely that these decisions will be entirely within the 
scope of the American position with regard to the 
"moral trusteeship" over Eussia's national interests, 
and there is no doubt that the deliberations at the Con- 
ference will push to the fore many aspects of the 
Russian situation in the Far East. It is hoped, there- 
fore, that this book will furnish a background for a 
clearer imderstanding of this important situation. 

Materials on the various Russian phases of the Far 
Eastern question are not easily available in this country, 
and their interpretation is most difficult. I wish to 
express my gratitude to those who have helped me with 
suggestion and advice, and to thank particularly my 



vi PREFACE 

friend, Professor Samuel IST. Harper of the University 
of Chicago, for his invaluable cooperation. 

Leo Pasvolsky. 
Washing-ton, D. C, 

December 20, 1921 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I Russia and the Washington Conference ... 1 
The Russian Question in Paris and in Washing- 
ton.— The idea of "Moral Trusteeship."— Three 
Conceptions of Russia. — The Purpose of the Book. 

^ II Russian Expansion in Asia 9 

Early Explorations. — The Acquisition of the Far 
East. — The Colonization of Siberia. 

^ III Relations with China and Japan 21^ 

Chinese-Japanese Conflicts over Korea. — The Be- 
ginning of Russian Imperialism. — Russo-Japanese 
Rivalry in Korea. — The Boxer Uprising. — Far 
Eastern Agreements Preceding the Russo-Japanese 
War. — The War between Russia and Japan. 

rV Treaty Arrangements in the Far East ... 37 

Russia and Japan after the War. — The Ports- 
mouth Treaty. — The Fisheries and the General 
Political Conventions. — The Russo-Japanese Se- 
cret Treaties. — Russia's Activities in Mongolia. — 
The Kyakhta Agreement. 

V The Bolsheviki and the Japanese in Siberia . . 56 

Siberia during the Revolution. — The Activities 
of the Japanese Troops. — The Idea of the "Buffer" 
State. — The Far Eastern Republic. 

VI The Third International in Asia 71 

Its General Aims and Purposes. — The Baku Con- 
gress. — Communist Activities in the Near East. — 

- The Soviet Diplomacy in China. — Communist 
Activities in India and Afghanistan. 
vii 



viii CONTENTS 

CHAPTBB PAflB 

VII The Soviet Strategy in the Far East ... 99 
The Transfer of the Emphasis of Communist Ac- 
tivities from the Near to the Far East. — The 
Kamchatka Incident. — The Overthrow of the Au- 
thority of the Far Eastern Eepublic in Vladivo- 
stok. — The Soviet Troops in Mongolia. — The So- 
viets Banking on a War between Japan and the 
United States. 

VIII The Soviet Far Eastern Conference . . . 122 
The Development of the Idea. — The Dairen Con- 
ference. — The Soviet Analysis of the Situation. — 
Relations between China and the Soviets. 

IX Russia's National Interests in the Far East . 138 
National Interests vs. Imperialistic Aggression. — 
Territorial Integrity. — National Sovereignty.— 
Economic Cooperation with Foreign Powers. — 
Japan and the United States in Siberia. 

X Russia's Role in a World Balance of Powers . . 147 

The World Equilibrium. — The New Importance 
of the Pacific Basin. — The Six Principal Factors 
in the World Situation. — Communist Russia as a 
Supernational Factor. — The Results of Commun- 
ist Activities in Asia. — The Probable Character 
of Reconstructed Russia. — The United States and 
Russia as the Upholders of the World Peace. 

APPENDIX : Text of Treaties and Documents . . 163 

I Russia and Japan 163 

J A. Political Convention of 1907 163 

B. Secret Treaty of 1916 165 

C. Secret Telegram of the Russian Ambassador at 
Tokyo Regarding the Lansing-Ishii Agreement 168 

D. Chicherin's Note on the Far East .... 170 

II Russia and China 174 

A. Russo-Mongolian-Chinese Convention . . . 174 



CONTENTS ix 

PA«B 

B. Appeal of the Eevolutionary Government of 
Mongolia ■^'" 

C. Chicherin's Reply to the Appeal of the Revolu- 
tionary Government of Mongolia .... 177 

D. Soviet Note on Chinese-Mongolian Relations 180 



RUSSIA 
IN THE FAR EAST 

CHAPTEK I 

RUSSIA AND THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE 

Russia is not represented at the Washington Confer- 
ence. For the second time since the termination of 
the World War, an international conference of far- 
reaching importance takes place with Eussia absent 
from the conference table. So it was in Paris in 1919 ; 
so it is in Washington in 1921. Yet there is a vast 
difference between the conditions attending these two 
instances when Russia is not present at a world con- 
clave of nations. 

At the Peace Conference in Paris no serious attempt 
was made to face squarely the problems presented by 
the state of affairs that had become established in 
Russia as a result of her Communist regime. The 
Conference dealt with problems resulting directly from 



2 RUSSIA m THE FAR EAST 

the World War, in whicli Russia was one of the prin- 
cipal participants and in which she suffered losses at 
least as great as any of her Allies. She had vital and 
direct interests at stake, which demanded determination 
and for which some provisions had to he made. Yet 
no such determination of Russia's interests was made; 
no such provision for the eventual satisfaction of these 
interests was attempted. What the Conference really 
did was to make every effort to push the Russian ques- 
tion into the background and leave it there hanging in 
the air. 

Almost throughout the duration of the Paris Con- 
ference the great powers which controlled it never 
seemed either decided or in accord even on the question 
of Russia's representation at the conference table. 
They attempted the Prinkipo Conference of different 
Russian groups. Russia was then in the throes 
of a civil war, and the differences between the combatant 
groups were obviously of such a nature as could not 
be composed by means of the kind of conference pro- 
posed from Paris. After the Prinkipo attempt at 
solving the Russian problem, the Paris Conference 
permitted the question to drop altogether. Occasionally 
this question would come up in the deliberations of the 
great powers, but never either for action or for any 



RUSSIA AND WASHINGTON CONFERENCE 3 

direct and binding declaration. For weeks tlie Con- 
ference conducted an exchange of notes with Admiral 
Kolchak, finally ending these protracted negotiations 
with a promise of assistance which, incidentally, was 
never carried out to the satisfaction of any Russian 
groups. 

As against this attitude to the Russian question on 
the part of the Paris Conference, we have quite a dif- 
ferent situation in Washington. The subject of "Si- 
beria" is on the *genda of the Conference, and there 
is an authoritative indication as to the attitude toward 
the Russian question on the part of at least one great 
power in the form of the declaration of the Gov- 
ernment of the United States, contained in the cablet- 
gram to the American Minister at Peking, dated 
September 19, 1921. This declaration was evoked 
by the fact that an agent of the Far Eastern Re^ 
public, the "buffer" state created by the Soviets in 
Eastern Siberia, sent a request to the American Lega- 
tion at Peking that representatives of that Republic 
be admitted to the Washingon Conference on Limitation 
of Armament. In reply to this, the Government of 
the United States instructed its Minister at Peking to 
communicate to the agent of the Far Eastern Republic 
the following "informal observations": 



4 EUSSIA m THE FAR EAST 

"In the absence of a single, recognized Russian Govern- 
ment, the protection of legitimate Russian interests must 
devolve as a moral trusteeship upon the whole Conference. 
It is regrettable that the Conference, for reasons quite beyond 
the control of the participating powers, is to be deprived of 
the advantage of Russian cooperation in deliberations, but 
it is not to be conceived that the Conference will take deci- 
sions prejudicial to legitimate Russian interests or which 
would in any manner violate Russian rights. It is the hope 
and expectation of the Government of the United States that 
the Conference will establish general principles of inter- 
national action which will deserve and have the support of 
the people of Eastern Siberia and of all Russia by reason 
of their justice and efficacy in the settlement of outstanding 
difficulties." 



The thesis set forth in these "unofficial observations" 
represents, naturally, only tbe position of the United 
States. But it is inconceivable that the position of the 
whole Conference should be fundamentally at variance 
with that of the United States, the initiator of the 
Conference itself, and it is safe to assume that "the 
moral trusteeship" over Russia's interests will be the 
attitude toward the Russian problem on the part of 
the Washington Conference. 

If we compare the attitude toward the Russian ques^- 
tion at the Paris and the Washington Conferences, we 
find three basic differences. The Paris Confer- 
ence failed entirely to face the Russian question with 
the directness and squareness that the importance of 
this question merited and demanded; the Washington 



EUSSIA AND WASHINGTON CONFERENCE 5 

Conference, judging by so authoritative a forecast of 
its position as the September declaration of the Govern- 
ment of the United States, seems prepared to face the 
Russian question directly and squarely. The Paris 
Conference was never certain of its position as to 
whether or not the Soviet regime in Russia was entitled 
to representation at the conference table, and demon- 
strated this lack of assurance by its attempt to call the 
Prinkipo Conference; the Washington Conference, 
again judging by the same forecast as above, is decided 
on its refusal to admit the right of the Soviet regime 
or any of its vassal formations on the former Russian 
territory to act as the spokesmen for the national and 
international interests of the Russian people, or to re^ 
ceive officially the representatives of any of the Russian 
groups in emigration. Finally, the Paris Conference 
made no attempt to apply international action to any 
of Russia's legitimate interests, jeopardized in any way 
by the situation that has become created in Russia be^ 
cause of the existence there of the Soviet regime; the 
Washington Conference seems prepared not only to 
examine these legitimate interests of Russia, but also 
to defend them by international action and hold them 
in trust for the reconstructed Russia of the future. 
But the declaration of the Government of the United 



6 EUSSIA m THE FAE EAST 

States, defining Eussia's position at the Washington 
Conference, raises two significant questions. 

The first of these questions is concerned with the 
nature and scope of Eussia's ^legitimate interests" and 
"rights." There is no doubt that the "unofiicial obser- 
vations" contained in the cablegram of September 19, 
1921, were not intended to preclude an opportunity for 
various Eussian groups to present their interpretation 
of these interests and rights to the Washington Confer- 
ence, and there is equally no doubt that such interpre- 
tations have been presented. But it is the idea of 
"moral trusteeship" that is to be the main protection of 
Eussia's rights and interests, and it ought not to be 
difficult to distinguish between what may properly 
be considered as Eussia's legitimate interests, the result 
of healthy national policies, and the spurious and ques- 
tionable advantages wrested by the Eussian Imperial 
Government at different phases of its unhealthy 
imperialistic ventures. It seems most important, there- 
fore, in view of the situation, to review the historic 
background of the events that have recently unfolded 
themselves in Eussia. 

Moreover, it is most important to bear in mind that 
there are at least three conceptions of "Eussia" pre- 
sented to us by Eussia's recent history. The first is 



EUSSIA AND WASHINGTON CONFERENCE 7 

the conception of Imperial Kussia, the Eussia that 
waSj the Russia that was swept out of existence by the 
Eevolution of March, 1917. This Russia was often 
aggressive and imperialistic. The second is the con- 
ception of Soviet Russia, the Russia that, for the 
moment, is. This Russia is hound to be, by its very 
nature, insatiably aggressive and, though in a different 
sense from its Imperial predecessor, violently imperial- 
istic. The third is the conception of Democratic 
Russia, the Russia that will he. This Russia emerged 
for a few short months between the March Revolution 
and the November overthrow of the Provisional Govern- 
ment; it is this Russia that is bound to emerge from 
the suffering country's present-day tragic trials. 

The ^legitimate" interests of Russia are those in- 
terests the impairment or violation of which will be 
prejudicial to this third Russia. Only for such a 
Russia is a "moral trusteeship'' of the United States 
and of the Washington Conference conceivable. 

The second question is concerned with the impos- 
sibility to invite representatives of the Soviet Govern- 
ment or of any of its vassal formations to the confer- 
ence table in Washington. It is often argued that in 
its foreign policy the Soviet Government follows 
"nationalistic" lines and consequently defends and pro- 



8 EUSSIA IN THE FAE EAST 

tects Eussia's national interests. And this argument is 
used as a basis for tlie belief that the Soviet Government 
is competent to act as the spokesman for Russia in all 
vital international relations. 

It is primarily to the answer to these two questions 
that this book is devoted. The attention is centered on 
the Far East, rather than on the Eussian situation 
generally, because the Washington Conference deals 
principally with the questions affecting the Far East. 
The book is an attempt to present the salient features 
of Eussia's concern with the Far East in the light of 
the history of her expansion and policies in Asia, as 
well as of the special problems presented by the recent 
activities in various parts of the Asiatic continent of 
the Eussian Soviet Government and of its ^^General 
Staff of the World Eevolution," known as the Third or 
Communist International, particularly with regard to 
their present-day politico-military strategy in the Far 
East. The concluding chapter is devoted to the relative 
position of Eussia and the United States, in the light 
both of their relations as separate national entities 
and of the role that they are likely to play in a world 
political equilibrium, the foundation for which it is 
hoped will be laid at the Washington Conference. 



CHAPTEK II 

RUSSIAN EXPANSION IN ASIA 

The story of Russia's expansion east of the Ural moun- 
tains is one of nearly five centuries of slow and gradual 
infiltration, followed by a quarter of a century of very 
intense and energetic activity. Out of this last quarter 
of a century grew a number of international conflictiS 
which had far-reaching consequences for the history 
of Eussia. 

As early as the thirteenth century, settlers from the 
more energetic of the Slavic principalities, at that time 
scattered like oases through the vast stretches of Euro- 
pean Russia, began to push their way across the Ural 
mountains and into the plains of Western Siberia. 
They conquered the aboriginal tribes which occupied 
these lands and built their trading outposts. The 
process continued through the fourteenth and fifteenth 
centuries, adventurous bands of Slavs pushing their 
way farther and farther into the fertile lands beyond 

the Urals. 

9 



10 RUSSIA IN THE FAR EAST 

In the second half of the sixteenth century, a band 
of adventurous Cossacks appeared on the territory of 
Siberia and, in the course of a series of expeditions, se- 
cured for Moscow a vast realm east of the Urals. The 
status of these bands and the precise reasons for their 
appearance in Siberia does not appear clear in historic 
records. One version makes them and particularly their 
leader, Yermak, refugees from justice; another version 
makes them semi-regular troops in the service of the 
Eussian authorities along the Siberian border. In any 
event, Yermak and his band pushed their way through 
the Siberian wilderness, and brought the aboriginal 
tribes to allegiance to the Tsar of Moscow. 

This event is usually taken as the historic beginning 
of definite and organized efforts on the part of the 
rapidly consolidating Russian state, centered around 
Moscow, to push its way eastward. From that time on, 
for a whole century, groups of adventurous traders 
went on and on into the heart of Asia. They were 
drawn by innumerable fantastic tales told by the 
aborigines of Siberia with whom they came in contact 
concerning the vast mineral wealth which lies farther 
and farther east. By the middle of the following cen- 
tury the power of Russia had already become extended 
as far as Lake Baikal. And all through the territory 



EUSSIAN EXPANSION IN ASIA 11 

lying around the lake, the Eussian settlers heard stories 
about a wonderful river that was supposed to take its 
source in the heart of China and flow through marvel- 
ously rich country into the huge ocean that bounded the 
continent at its easternmost extremities. 

Enticed by these stories, an adventurous emissary 
sent by the governor of the Yakutsk province, which 
covers the north-central portion of Siberia, set out in 
search of the great river and its untold riches. This 
emissary, Yasily Poyarkov by name, succeeded in 1646 
in reaching the Amur river, the great stream that had 
figured so prominently in the tales of the Siberian 
aborigines. He sailed down the river and returned to 
Yakutsk with an enthusiastic story of what he had seen 
on his journey. Three years after Poyarkov's explora- 
tion, Erofey Khabarov, an enterprising peasant settler 
in the Yakutsk province, sailed down the Amur river 
with a band of followers and began the real conquest 
of the land, which was to some extent inhabited by the 
Chinese and acknowledged the rule of the Manchu 
dynasty. Others followed Khabarov, and in the course 
of the next forty years a number of Kussian settlements 
sprang up along the Amur and in the surrounding 
country. 

However, the Peking Government objected to this 



12 EUSSIA IN THE FAE EAST 

colonization, witli the result that in 1689 a treaty was 
signed at Nerchinsk between Russia and China, by 
virtue of which the whole Amur territory was officially 
recognized as a part of China. 

Tor a hundred and fifty years after that, the efforts 
of Russian colonizers in Siberia were restricted to the 
lands lying west of the Amur territory. But in 1846 
Nicholas I ordered an investigation of the Amur quesr 
tion, as well as of the Amur territory itself. Following 
this order, the Governor-General of Eastern Siberia, 
N. Muraviev, sent an expedition to the Amur river, 
led by Captain Nevelsky, a young and energetic officer, 
who started out on his mission in 1849. 

At that time Russia did not feel herself very strongly 
situated in her eastern possessions, while her general 
international situation was far from satisfactory: the 
clouds of the Crimean War, which was to result in an 
utter defeat of Russia, were already on the horizon. 
In view of this, the order for the investigation of the 
Amur territory was accompanied by strict instructions 
to avoid any conflict with China. In spite of these 
instructions, however. Captain Nevelsky in 1850 built 
a fort near the mouth of the Amur river on the site 
of the present city of Nikolayevsk, and, raising the 



RTTSSIAN EXPANSION IN ASIA 13 

Russian flag over the city, claimed the whole territory 
as a part of the Russian Empire. 

Although the report of this exploit was received 
very unfavorably in St. Petersburg and the fort was 
ordered destroyed, the Russian Imperial Government 
soon after this resumed its efforts to gain possession of 
the Amur territory. Negotiations looking toward the 
cession of the Amur lands to Russia were conducted 
during the following five years by the Russian ambassa- 
dor in Peking. The Chinese Government at first refused 
the demands of the Russian ambassador, but finally gave 
in, and in 1858, by virtue of the Aigun treaty, the Amur 
territory became definitely and officially a part of the 
Russian Empire. 

Thus, by the middle of the nineteenth century, or ^ve 
hundred years after Russia began her movement toward 
the East, she finally ended her eastward march and 
came to rest on the shores of the Pacific Ocean. By 
the time of the signing of the Aigun treaty, Russian 
settlers were already scattered over the Amur territory 
and the various points of the coast. The first appear- 
ance of Russian settlers on the island of Sakhalin was 
in 1857, and on the peninsula of Kamchatka much, 
earlier than that. 

But the occupation of this whole territory did not 



14 EUSSIA IN THE FAR EAST 

in any way imply an active policy of development on 
the part of the Eussian Government. On the contrary, 
for a number of decades, following the formal cession 
of the Amur territory to Eussia, scarcely anything was 
done for an active utilization of the vast resources 
which had thus been acquired by Eussia. One of the 
great difficulties was the question of transportation, 
which greatly hindered — in fact, rendered almost im- 
possible — any colonization scheme on a fairly large 
scale. 

Generally speaking, the colonization of Asiatic Eus^ 
sia began soon after Yermak^s formal conquest of the 
country. For three hundred years after that, i. e., 
until the second half of the nineteenth century, there 
were recurrent periods of slow infiltration of settler 
groups into the vast reaches of Siberia. These settlers 
were principally of four different classes : traders, mili- 
tary contingents, exiles, and free immigrants. 

The first colonizers of Siberia were mainly traders, 
attracted by the fur and mineral wealth of the new 
lands. Together with them came Cossack groups, who 
settled there and served for protection. In the eigh- 
teenth century, large groups of Cossacks from the Don 
district moved to the Transbaikal region and settled 
there. They received special privileges from the Gov- 



EUSSIAN EXPANSION IN ASIA 15 

eminent. Numerically, however, neither of these two 
classes of settlers was important for the colonization of 
Siberia. 

The exiles were a much more important element in 
the work of colonizing Asiatic Kussia. The system of 
Siberian exile was begun as early as the seventeenth 
century, the first recorded legislation providing for 
exile to Siberia being in 1648. At the beginning, the 
system of exile was used merely as a punitive measure 
and was applied mostly to criminal offenders. Gradu- 
ally, however, economic importance began to be attached 
to it. The development of Siberia's natural wealth, 
particularly of its mineral resources, and the beginning 
of manufacturing in some of the larger centers, notably 
in Irkutsk, opened up the possibilities of utilizing the 
exiles as a source of labor supply. Political offenders 
and religious non-conformists were early added to the 
exile elements, and together the three exile groups con- 
stituted a rather important factor, from the viewpoint 
of both colonization and economic development. 

In 1753 capital punishment was abolished in Russia, 
and penal servitude in Siberia was substituted for it. 
This, naturally, resulted in a certain amount of increase 
in the number of exiles, though it scarcely improved 
the character of the exile elements. 



16 EUSSIA m THE FAR EAST 

The fourtli and by far the most important class of 
settlers was the free immigrant element. During the 
early centuries of the colonization of Siberia this ele- 
ment was not very large. The Russian Government 
itself did not encourage free migration to Siberia, and 
until 1870 even made no efforts to separate the peaceful 
settlers from the exiles. 

But, beginning with the second half of the nineteenth 
century, the importance of the free immigrant element 
increased very considerably. The liberation of the 
serfs in 1861 provided a decided stimulus to free 
migration beyond the Urals. Soon after the actual 
liberation itself the peasants realized that the agrarian 
forms established under the new system would scarcely 
provide them in any part of Russia vdth sufficient 
amounts of land. New opportunities began to be 
sought elsewhere by the more energetic of the liberated 
peasants. 

Lack of transportation facilities, however, impeded 
greatly the work of colonization. But in the eighties 
of the past century, when the Russian Government 
began to take up a project of the construction of a txans- 
Siberian railroad, interest in free migration into Siberia 
increased very perceptibly. This interest continued to 
grow as the construction of the railroad was begun and 



EUSSIAN EXPANSION IN ASIA 17 

was pushed farther and farther eastward. The com- 
pletion of the railroad line and the Russo-Japanese War 
served to induce an increasingly rapid tempo into the 
process of the colonization of Siberia. 

This constantly increasing tempo was in a rather 
interesting contrast with the slow movement of the 
first centuries of Russian occupation of Siberia. It 
has been calculated that from the time of the first 
migrations, following Yermak's conquest of Siberia and 
up to the second half of the nineteenth century, less 
than three million settlers had crossed the Urals. The 
number that crossed the great Eurasian divide during 
the last quarter of a century was several times that 
total. In the course of the half-decade from 1906 to 
1910, nearly three million settlers left European Russia 
and went into the different parts of Siberia. 

There was another factor which served to stimulate 
the migration into Siberia during the years following 
the Russo-Japanese War, and that was the attitude 
on the part of the Russian Government, coupled with 
the direct result of a number of its agrarian measures. 
In 1906, over 200,000 square miles of governmental 
or so-called ''Cabinet" lands in Siberia were thrown 
open to general colonization. This in itself caused a 
rush of colonists, which was still further stimulated 



18 RUSSIA m THE FAE EAST 

by the fact that, the following year, the agrarian pro- 
gram sponsored by Prime Minister Stolypin went into 
effect. This program consisted in abolishing some of 
the features of the traditional system of communal land 
tenure. Its object was to create a class of small peasant 
proprietors by permitting the cutting up of communally 
held lands and granting individual peasants the right 
of selling their lands without the consent of the com- 
munal organizations. AU this afforded the more ener- 
getic peasant elements more opportunity for migration, 
and rendered Siberia with its extensive and virgin land 
tracts more accessible to them. 

The migration to Siberia during the year 1906 itself 
comprised only 141,294 immigrants. But the very next 
year the number increased to 427,339, while in 1908 
the high-water mark of the Siberian migration was 
reached: in the course of that year 664,777 immigrants 
entered Asiatic Eussia. Then the volume of migration 
began to decrease, though the number for 1909 was 
still 619,320. 

The colonists in Siberia occupy almost exclusively 
the "black-soil" belt, which runs through the southern 
part of the country and through which the Trans- 
Siberian Kailroad and the great Siberian roadway are 
laid. They spread away from this belt occasionally. 



EUSSIAN EXPANSION IN ASIA 19 

hewing their way into the vast Siberian forests and clear- 
ing for themselves tremendously valuable virgin lands. 

The colonization of Eastern Siberia and particularly 
of the Far East proper is of more recent origin than 
that of the western portion of the country, though, 
curiously enough, in some territories here the percentage 
of Kussian immigrant population by comparison with 
the non-Kussian elements is very high. In the Transr 
baikal territory, it was calculated in 1900 that the 
percentage of Russian population was 64; it is much 
higher now. This territory was used for a long time 
as a place of exile for political offenders, and some of 
the most important political prisons and places of exile 
were located here. 

In the Amur territory the first colonizers were Cos- 
sacks who were ordered to settle there after 1857-8, 
when the territory was formally ceded by China to 
Eussia. Peasant colonization of the territory began 
in 1869. These settlers came to entirely unoccupied 
lands, for the native population was extremely sparse, 
while the Chinese were aggregated at a small number 
of centers, principally at the confluences of rivers. By 
1911 the total population of the Amur territory was 
estimated at 286,000, of whom only about 44,000 were 
non-Russian. 



20 RUSSIA m THE FAR EAST 

The colonization of the Maritime or Primorsk Prov- 
ince proceeded under conditions practically analogous 
with those which obtained in the Amur territory. The 
percentage of Russian population there is somewhat 
lower, being a little over 60, though the total population 
is more than twice the population of the Amur territory. 
!N"either Sakhalin nor Kamchatka have been found suit- 
able for extensive colonization, except in certain points 
along the coast. 

By the time of the Revolution, Russia's possessions 
in Asia occupied the whole of the northern belt and a 
large part of the temperate zone of Asia, stretching 
clear across the continent^ from the Ural mountains to 
the Pacific Ocean. In some of its mid- Asiatic posses- 
sions, notably Turkestan, the Russian Empire pushed 
into the very heart of central Asia. One third of the 
total surface of the continent constituted Russian terri- 
tory. The population of this territory in that year was 
over twenty millions. The twelve provinces which 
constitute Siberia had at that time a population of about 
fifteen millions. E'ully seventy-five per cent, of this 
number were white, almost exclusively settlers from 
European Russia — the living forces of Russia's expan- 
sion in Asia. 



CHAPTEE III 

RELATIONS WITH CHINA AND JAPAN 

The awakening of Japan in the second half of the 
nineteenth century led her to an aggressive policy on 
the continent of Asia and brought her into a series of 
violent conflicts, first with China and eventually with 
Russia. The first important appearance of Japan was 
the result of a commercial treaty which she signed in 
1876 with the Government of Korea. Although at that 
time practically a vassal of China, Korea made her 
own international arrangements, of which the treaty 
of 1876 was probably the most important in her history, 
for it opened the door to foreigners, made Korea the 
arena of an international struggle, and led to her almost 
complete absorption by Japan. 

Korea's agreement with Japan was followed by simi- 
lar treaties with a number of European powers, the last 
one being with Eussia in 1884. The influx of for- 
eigners resulting from these arrangements caused very 

considerable resentment on the part of the Korean 

21 



22 EUSSIA IN THE FAE EAST 

people and led to a rebellion, which occurred soon after 
the signing of the Eussian treaty. The principal 
enmity of the Korean people was directed against the 
Japanese, who were both most active among the foreign 
groups and were generally considered the initiators and 
the principal cause of the whole situation. Japan sent 
troops to Korea, but, upon China's protest, withdrew 
them, for the rebellion had already been put down. 
But she conditioned the withdrawal of her troops upon 
a convention signed at the same time, by virtue of which 
both China and Japan reserved the right to send troops 
to Korea to establish order, but undertook to notify 
each other whenever such dispatching of troops would 
be in contemplation. 

Ten years later, in 1894, another rebellion occurred 
in Korea, and when the Korean Emperor appealed to 
Peking for help and the Chinese Government sent troops 
to Korea, Japan immediately dispatched her own troops 
there. Under the pretext of taking measures to quell 
the uprising, the Japanese troops occupied the city of 
Seoul, the Korean capital. At the same time the 
Japanese ambassador demanded from the Korean Gov- 
ernment the immediate withdrawal of the Chinese troops 
and the placing in the hands of the Japanese expedi- 
tionary force of the entire task of maintaining order 



RELATIONS WITH CHINA AND JAPAN 23 

in Korea. China served a counter-demand of tlie same 
nature upon the Japanese Government, and this counter- 
demand, served in the terms of an ultimatum, led to 
a war between China and Japan. 

The war was of a very short duration, and Japan 
was entirely successful in its conduct. On April 17, 
1895, a treaty of peace was signed at the Japanese city 
of Simonoseki. By virtue of this treaty, China recog- 
nized the independence of Korea and ceded to Japan 
the island of Formosa, a number of other smaller 
islands, and, what was most important of all. Southern 
Manchuria and the naval base of Port Arthur; more^ 
over, a large contribution was provided for by this 
treaty. 

The treaty of Simonoseki brought to the Kussian 
Imperial Government a realization of the importance 
which the Far Eastern situation was beginning to as- 
sume. The Chinese colossus was apparently badly 
weakened. At the same time, a new power appeared 
on the continent of Asia in the form of the awakened 
Japan, which was rapidly forcing its influence and was 
becoming a force to be reckoned with through its acqui- 
sition of such an important continental base as rich and 
fertile Manchuria. Eussia immediately set to work 
to frustrate the plans of the Japanese. 



24 EUSSIA IN THE FAE EAST 

An ultimatum was sent to Tokyo, demanding from 
Japan the immediate return to China of Manchuria 
and the city of Port Arthur. France and Germany 
joined in the Russian protest, which was supported very 
forcefully by the dispatching to the Chinese waters of 
a strong Ruasian-French-German fleet. Japan agreed 
to relinquish her claims to Manchuria, but insisted on 
retaining Port Arthur. To this the coalition powers 
would not consent, and Japan was forced in the end 
to give up Port Arthur. 

This first active interference on the part of Russia 
in the affairs of the Far East was decidedly a conflict 
between her and Japan, which resulted in her favor but 
left Japan very resentful. This initial resentment on 
the part of Japan increased greatly in intensity, when 
three years later Russia herself did precisely what Japan 
tried to do and was prevented from doing by the active 
interference on the part of Russia and her Allies. 

Its success in the reversing of the Simonoseki agree- 
ment was no doubt a powerful stimulus in changing the 
attitude of the Russian Government toward the affairs 
of the Far East. An excellent illustration of this may 
be found in its suddenly changed estimate of the sig- 
nificance of the Trans-Siberian Railroad, the construc- 
tion of which by that time had already practically 



KELATIONS WITH CHINA AND JAPAN 25 

reached the Amur River. Until its appearance as an 
active political factor in the Far Eastern situation, 
the Russian Imperial Government looked upon the 
Trans-Siberian Railroad solely as an artery of trade 
and an instrument of colonization. After the first en- 
counter with Japan the Siberian railroad began to 
loom in its eyes as a strategic possibility. \y^ 

The terminus of the Trans-Siberian Railroad is the 
city of Vladivostok. The question of how that city 
was to be connected by railroad with the already con- 
structed portions of the Trans-Siberian came up just 
about that time. A line could be run along the left- 
hand bank of the Amur, or else it could traverse 
Manchuria at a rather considerable distance from the 
right-hand bank of the Amur. The second course meant 
fewer technical difiiculties and a very important shorten- 
ing of the track, but it also involved political consid- 
erations of a prime importance, since fourteen hundred 
versts of the track had to be laid over Chinese territory. 

The possibility of a line through Manchuria had 
been discussed before, and its economic importance to 
Russia was fully realized since the Amur line, even- 
tually constructed after the Russo-Japanese War, obvi- 
ously presented great difficulties both of construction 
and maintenance. Negotiations relative to the con- 



26 EUSSIA IN THE FAE EAST 

struction of this road had been carried on between the 
Eusso-Chinese Bank and the Chinese Government, and 
a contract was finally signed in 1896. The result of 
this contract was the construction of the Chinese East- 
em Eailroad and the cession to Russia of important 
privileges in a strip of Chinese territory, extending 
along both sides of the railroad. 

But the railroad agreement was followed two years 
later by a Russian-Chinese convention, which was of a 
tremendously far-reaching nature and which made it 
possible for the imperialistic groups in St. Petersburg 
to obscure the paramount economic importance of the 
Chinese Eastern Railroad by political considerations 
of a most dangerous nature. By virtue of this con- 
vention, signed in Peking on March 15, 1898, Russia 
leased from China for the period of twenty-five years 
the cities of Port Arthur and Talienwan, the two impor- 
tant ports in the southern part of Manchuria. Russia 
received also the right to connect these ports by means 
of a railroad line with the main line of the Chinese 
Eastern Railroad. The lease was made renewable 
indefinitely by agreement of the two sides. 

By the conclusion of the Russo-Chinese agreement, 
Russia entered definitely upon a policy of imperialistic 
aggression in the Far East. Her role and that of Japan 



RELATIONS WITH CHINA AND JAPAN 27 

became reversed. She was now attempting to do, by 
pushing down from the north, what Japan had attempted 
to do by pushing up from the south, viz., to establish 
dominating control in Manchuria. An intense rivalry 
sprang up between Eussia and Japan which lasted for 
a number of years and finally brought them to an armed 
encounter. The scene of the rivalry was at first trans- 
ferred from Manchuria to Korea, only to be shifted back 
again on the very eve of the Eusso-Japanese War. 

Deprived of the advantages in Manchuria she had 
wrested from China by the Simonoseki treaty, Japan 
turned her attention definitely in the direction of Korea 
and began to establish her influence there. But she 
was again brought face to face with Eussia, which was 
quick to follow her to Korea. On May 14, 1896, a 
convention was signed between Eussia and Japan, by 
virtue of which both Eussia and Japan undertook to 
assist Korea in establishing internal order and other- 
wise reorganizing her affairs after her break with China. 
This assistance was to be in the form of the presence 
of Eussian and Japanese advisers in Seoul. 

In March, 1898, the Korean Government informed 
Eussia that order had been established in the country 
and that the presence of foreign advisers was no longer 
necessary. The Eussian Government replied to this 



28 EUSSIA IN THE FAR EAST 

that it was quite willing to cease all active participation 
in the affairs of Korea, provided Korea had really 
established order and was in a position to defend her 
independence. Otherwise Russia would consider it 
necessary to take measures to insure this. This reply 
was obviously a mere formality on the part of the 
Russian Government, for neither Russia nor Japan 
were prepared to leave Korea. On the contrary, they 
were vying with each other in the work of economic 
penetration. Japan was particularly interested in the 
construction of railroads, while Russia sought timber 
concessions, which were a very poor disguise for stra- 
tegic advantages. This ostensibly economic but really 
military rivalry between Russia and Japan in Korea 
continued for several years and was one of the imme- 
diate causes of the war between the two countries. 

In the meantime, Russia was working in Manchuria 
with a truly feverish energy. Immediately upon her 
acquisition of the ports in southern Manchuria she 
began to construct a powerful naval fortress at Port 
Arthur and a commercial port at Talienwan, which she 
renamed Dalny. At the same time she was pushing 
the construction of the railroad line which was to con- 
nect these ports with the Trans-Siberian line. 

In 1900 a formidable revolt took place in China, 



Mm^. 



RELATIONS WITH CHINA AND JAPAN 29 

known as the Boxer uprising. This uprising was 
directed against all foreigners, who were acquiring 
greater and greater privileges in China and obtaining 
more and more a firm footing on Chinese territory. 
The revolt was put down by the intervention of the 
great world powers, which sent an international expe- 
ditionary force into China. But before the revolt was 
put down, much damage was done to foreign life and 
property. 

As far as Russia was concerned, the Boxer uprising 
affected particularly her property in Manchuria. By 
the time of the uprising, nearly 1300 versts of the 
Chinese Eastern Railroad had been laid, and of them 
over 900 versts were destroyed by the insurgents. 
Tremendous amounts of property and supplies were 
also destroyed. As a result of this, Russian troops 
occupied nearly the whole of Manchuria. 

When the Boxer uprising had been put down and 
the terms of the settlement arranged, the Chinese Gov- 
ernment took up with the Russian Government the ques- 
tion of the evacuation of Manchuria, which was still 
occupied by the Russian troops. On March 26, 1902, 
a Russo-Chinese convention was signed in Peking, which 
provided for the withdrawal of the Russian troops from 
Manchuria, but this provision was made in very indefi- 



30 KUSSIA IN" THE FAE EAST 

nite terms. At the same time, tlie convention placed 
Russia in an especially favorable situation with regard 
to her economic penetration there. So far as Manchuria 
was concerned, Eussia had practically obtained the 
application to that part of China of the principle of 
the "closed door," with herself as the holder of the key. 
Quite carried away by the success which had attended 
so far its imperialistic ventures in the Far East, the 
Russian Imperial Government became more and more 
ambitious in its Far Eastern policies. There were 
groups that even urged an annexation of the whole of 
Manchuria in lieu of the Boxer indemnities, to which 
Russia was entitled by the terms of the settlement 
following the Boxer uprising. While this part of the 
Russian diplomatic history is still unwritten, there is 
reason to believe that Germany was to a large extent 
responsible for the ambitious Far Eastern policy of the 
Government of Nicholas II. Russia's international 
position during that period was very strong, while 
internally she was going through a very rapid industrial 
development, which caused considerable apprehensions 
to Germany. Although the relations between Russia 
and Germany were very friendly, the Germans were 
growing more and more disturbed about Russia's eco- 
nomic progress, which, the Germans knew but too well, 



RELATIONS WITH CHINA AND JAPAN 31 

woiild bring with it an insistent demand for a non- 
freezing port and was bound to be a serious economic 
blow to Germany. To inspire Kussia with ambitions 
in the Far East, to fill her with fears of a "Yellow 
Peril/' to whisper into the ear of her Government the 
dreams of a, non-freezing port in Manchuria, to inveigle 
her in this manner in a hot-headed adventure in the 
Far East and draw her attention away from develop- 
ment in Europe — aU this, there is reason to believe, 
was planned and executed by the German Imperial 
Government. 

In 1901 a Far Eastern Convention was signed be- 
tween Great Britain and Germany. This convention 
guaranteed the integrity of China and freedom of trade 
there. But it did not mention Korea, and deliberately 
excluded Manchuria. This exclusion of Manchuria 
from guarantees of freedom of trade was made at the 
insistence of Germany with a view to Russian preten- 
sions there.* It was opposed by Great Britain, and not 
only rendered the whole convention practically inopera- 
tive but led to most important consequencer in the form 

* Prince Biilow, the German Imperial Chancellor, declared in the 
Reichstag with reference to the Germau-British convention that the 
German Imperial Government recognized defiiytely Russia's special 
rights in Manchuria. This declaration of the German Imperial 
Chancellor caused much jubilation at the time in the Russian govern- 
mental circles, which then little dreamt of the consequences that this 
apparently "friendly" attitude of the German Government was destined 
to have for Russia. 



32 EUSSIA IN THE FAR EAST 

of an Anglo-Japanese agreement, signed the following 
year. 

The Anglo- Japanese agreement, signed in 1902, guar- 
anteed the independence of China and Korea. But it 
recognized special interests of Great Britain in China 
and of Japan in both China and Korea, as well as the 
right of each to protect its interests in these countries, 
if threatened by aggression of another countTy or by 
internal disorders. The agreement also provided that 
in case one of the contracting powers should be drawn 
into a war, the other must preserve neutrality and make 
every effort, to prevent other powers from joining against 
its ally. Should, however, another power join against 
the ally, the neutral contracting power would be obliged 
immediately to render assistance to its ally. 

This agreement was Russia's first reverse in the Far 
East. She countered it, however, by a Russo-French 
convention, signed the same year, in which the two 
contracting parties declared that they reserved a right 
to defend their interests in the Far East. The possi- 
bility of an armed conflict with other powers was men- 
tioned in the convention, which was generally taken as 
a notice on the part of France that the provisions of 
her offensive and defensive alliance with Russia, then 
already in existence, would apply in case of an armed 



EELATIOJSrS WITH CHINA AND JAPAN 33 

encounter in tlie Far East. The Russian Government 
thought it had thus checkmated its opponent, but the 
very next year Russia's second reverse in the Far East 
took place. 

This second reverse was in the form of the American- 
Chinese convention, signed in 1903, which opened up 
for foreign trade the cities of Mukden and Andun and 
provided that the rules of foreign trade and of the resi- 
dence of foreigners, i. e., Americans, would be settled 
by agreement between China and the United States. 
These provisions were counter to the provisions of the 
Russo-Chinese convention of the previous year, and the 
Russian Government protested against it, hoping that 
it would not bo ratified in its original form. Pending 
the ratification of the convention, Russia interrupted 
the evacuation of Manchuria, which had already begun, 
and reoccupied the city of Mukden. However, the con- 
vention was ratified as originally drafted, and Russian 
claims to the establishment in Manchuria of her sphere 
of special interests was definitely shaken. This reverse 
was particularly telling for Russia, because Japan was 
entirely in harmony with the United States in the de- 
mand for the maintenance of the principle of "open 
door'' in Manchuria. 

All through the year 1903 negotiations were carried 



34 EIJSSIA m THE FAR EAST 

on between Russia and Japan, looking toward a settle- 
ment of the Korean question and a composition of the 
difficulties between the two countries. Finally a tenta- 
tive agreement was reached, but Japan demanded that 
the settlement include also the Manchurian question. 
To this Russia would not consent, claiming that the 
two questions should not be confused, but should be 
settled separately. Then Japan suddenly broke off the 
negotiations and declared a war on Russia. 

The Russo-Japanese War began at the end of 1903 
and lasted for nearly a year and a half, when it was 
terminated by an intervention of Theodore Roosevelt, 
then President of the United States. Japan was en- 
tirely victorious throughout the war. The reasons for 
this were numerous and varied. The Russian advance 
in Manchuria and Korea was not carried on with any 
degree of either military or economic skill. Russia was 
utterly unprepared for the war, in spite of the fact that, 
for months before it came, its clouds were unmistakable 
on the political horizon. There were not enough troops 
in the Far East or close enough to the Far Eastern 
theatre of war. Supplies were utterly insufficient. 
Transportation was wretched, and the Trans-Siberian 
Railroad still in an unfinished state. The naval equip- 
ment was thoroughly inadequate. The whole high 



4 



RELATI0:N'S with china and japan 35 

administrative personnel, from the Viceroy, Admiral 
Alexeyev, down, seems to have been scarcely fitted for 
the difficult tasks at hand. Moreover, the war was 
never for a moment popular in Eussia herself. The 
public opinion of the country was never in sympathy 
with the Far Eastern ambitions of the Government, 
which were so obviously wasteful and unnecessary, the 
product of foreign intrigue and overbearing hot- 
headedness. 

Beginning with the daring sinking of three Eussian 
warships in the harbor of Port Arthur, which was the 
first act of war, and on through the victories of Mukden 
and Tsusima, as well as numerous other major and 
minor triumphs of the Japanese army and navy, Japan 
dealt Eussia one swift blow after another. But a year 
and a half of this impetuous fighting exhausted Japan. 
It is said — and probably, with justice — that at the time 
when the war was brought to a close by the American 
offer of good offices, Japan was in no position to conduct 
either offensive operations or a prolonged war, while 
Eussia, awakening from the stunning influence of her 
first defeats, had reorganized herself for very effective 
defensive operations. On the other hand, it is also 
true that the war had already thrown Eussia into the 
throes of the first revolution, which burst out in all its 



36 RUSSIA IN THE FAR EAST 

fury immediately after the conclusion of the war and 
could scarcely have heen staved off by the Government. 
In any event, the Eusso-Japanese War ended the 
first period of Kussia's intense, though thoughtless, 
imperialism in the Far East. Japan's triumph and 
Russia's defeat once more reversed their positions 
in Far Eastern affairs, at least so far as Manchuria and 
Korea were concerned. Japan returned to the position 
she occupied after the Simonoseki treaty, now prac- 
tically unchallenged in her attempts at establishing her 
supremacy on the shores of the Yellow Sea. Russia 
lost all prestige in the south. But the forces of east- 
ward penetration which she had created during that 
decade of frenzied imperialism in Manchuria could not 
be crushed even by so serious a reverse as the defeat she 
suffered in the Russo-Japanese War. While Japan was 
busy with the securing of the fruits of her stupendous 
victory, Russia turned her attention in another direcr 
tioiL 



CHAPTEE IV 

TREATY ABEANGEMENTS IN THE FAR EAST 

The Russo-Japanese War brought to a close a decade 
of intense and persistent Russian imperialism in the 
Far East. It took Japan eight years of preparations 
and two years of the bloodiest war in her history to 
avenge herself and to get back what she had lost because 
of Russia's interference with the operation of the 
Simonoseki treaty. But, curiously enough, the lesson 
which should have been drawn by both the Russian and 
the Japanese empires from the fate of Russia's im- 
perialistic venture in Manchuria passed entirely un- 
learnt by either. Just as Russia, immediately after 
frustrating Japan in 1895, set to work to do precisely 
what she prevented Japan from doing, so Japan, after 
defeating Russia on the fields of Manchuria, imme- 
diately changed some of the fundamental ideas that 
had actuated her policies before and began to demand 
and assure to herself the kind of rights and privileges 

against which she had protested so strenuously when 

37 



38 EUSSIA IN THE PAE EAST 

they were held by Eussia. In eaeli case there was 
merely a change of technique and of the method of 
approach. 

In 1895 Japan wrested from China by force of arms 
the recognition of Manchuria as lying within the sphere 
of her special interests. Essentially, that meant the 
closing of Manchuria to all outsiders except Japan. 
During the following three years Eussia, by dint of 
national and international pressure, forced Japan to 
relinquish this position in Manchuria, and succeeded in 
replacing Japan by herself. Then Japan immediately 
began to demand the principle of "open door" in 
Manchuria. To this Eussia was strenuously opposed. 
The Eusso-Japanese War again shifted the position of 
the principals in this conflict, bringing Japan on top 
once more. 

But the Eusso-Japanese War left Japan fully mindful 
of the price she had had to pay for the political and 
military achievements in the course of the decade of 
her acute conflict with Eussia. Left panting and nearly 
exhausted by the war itself, Japan was nevertheless 
watching carefully the internal political developments 
in Eussia. It was most important for her to determine 
to what extent the internal perturbations in Eussia, 
brought about by the revolution of 1905, would divert 



TKEATY AERANGEMENTS IN FAR EAST 39 

the attention of the Eussian Imperial Government from 
the problems of the Far East. When, however, the 
revolution was put dowTi bj an armed hand and the 
Imperial Government seemed entrenched as strong as 
ever, Japan came to a realization that such an enemy's 
defeat may easily turn to bitter resentment and even- 
tually to revenge. And it was certainly far from 
Japan's thoughts to endanger the advantages she had 
won at such a price by another armed conflict with 
Russia, the outcome of which it would have been most 
j difficult to predict on the basis of the previous en- 
counter. The enemy had to be won over in another way. 

This policy pursued by Japan dictated a number of 
treaties and agreements which she concluded with 
Eussia in the course of the decade following the Eusso- 
Japanese War. And it is interesting to see how quickly 
Japan changed from an attempt to turn to advantage 
the temporary weakness of her opponent to a realization 
that a defeated enemy may sometimes be turned into 
a valuable partner. 

The treaty of peace which formally concluded the 
Eusso-Japanese War was signed at Portsmouth, N". H., 
in September, 1905. In this treaty the first phase of 
Japan's policy found ample expression. 

By the terms of the Portsmouth treaty, Eussia re- 



40 EUSSIA m THE FAR EAST 

linquished formally all claims to any privileges or 
special interests in Korea and Southern Manchuria. 
She recognized Korea as lying within the sphere of 
Japan's special interests, and thereby opened the way 
to Japan's subsequent complete domination of the 
Korean Peninsula. She ceded to Japan all the rights 
she enjoyed in Port Arthur and Talienwan by virtue 
of the Kusso-Chinese agreement of 1898, as well as the 
railroad line, running from these ports to Changchun. 
She withdrew her troops from all parts of Manchuria, 
still unevacuated, and formally turned over this terri- 
tory to Japan, which undertook to restore it to China. 
She still retained the Chinese Eastern Kailroad, but 
obligated herself to use the line merely for economic, 
but never for military, purposes. So far as Russia's 
dominant position in Manchuria and Korea was con- 
cerned, these provisions of the Portsmouth treaty ended 
once for all her pretensions there. 

But Japan was not satisfied with merely forcing 
Russia to liquidate in this manner her whole imperial- 
istic venture in the Far East. She felt that she could 
also compel the defeated colossus to defray part of the 
expenses she had incurred during the war and the years 
that preceded it. The Russian delegation, headed by 
Count Sergius Witte, was entirely opposed to any pro- 



TREATY ARRANGEMENTS IN FAR EAST 41 

vision for contributions to be paid by Russia to Japan. 
The wbole conduct of negotiations at Portsmoutb was 
permeated by this adamant position of the Russian 
delegation on the question of contributions. And the 
compromise arrived at in this regard resolved itself into 
territorial cession and economic advantages given to 
Japan by Russia as indemnity due to the victor in the 
war. 

The territorial cession consisted of the southern half 
of the island of Sakhalin, below the line of 50° N. lat. 
In this manner Russia relinquished to Japan a part of 
the territory in the Far East which she had been 
colonizing for nearly fifty years and which she held in 
formal possession for well over a quarter of a century. 
The colonization of this island began almost simul- 
taneously by the Russians and the Japanese in the fifties 
of the past century on the principle of the acquisition 
of possession of unoccupied lands. This chaotic distri- 
bution of mixed population on the island led to numer- 
ous clashes and difficulties, and in 1875 a treaty was 
concluded between Russia and Japan, by virtue of which 
Japan ceded to Russia all her rights in the Sakhalin 
in exchange for the Kuril Islands. By virtue of the 
Portsmouth treaty Japan received back the southern 
half of the island, which, during the years subsequent 



42 RUSSIA IN THE FAR EAST 

to the treaty of 1875, was discovered to be a veritable 
treasure-house of natural wealth.* 

The economic advantages obtained by Japan as a 
result of the Portsmouth treaty consisted in a recog- 
nition by Russia of the right of Japanese subjects to 
engage in the fishing trade along the coast of Siberia. 
The provisions of the treaty with this regard were 
indefinite, consisting merely of a statement of the 
general principle involved, and looking toward a more 
detailed arrangement to be arrived at later on. This 
arrangement was made two years later in the form of 
the Russo-Japanese Fisheries Convention, signed on 
July 28, 1907. 

The fisheries rights given the Japanese by the Ports- 
mouth treaty were sweeping and all-inclusive in their 
nature. They were, however, defined and somewhat 
curtailed by the Fisheries convention of 1907. This 
convention and the General Political Convention, signed 
about the same time, indicate clearly Japan's change of 
policy in her relations with Russia that took place in 
the course of less than two years. 

By virtue of the Fisheries convention, the Japanese 
received the right to engage in various fishing pursuits, 

* Aa we shall see below, fifteen years after the Portsmouth Treaty 
Japan found a pretext for occupying the northern half of the island 
and is now in full military control of the whole of Sakhalin. Of. 
Chapter V. 



TREATY ARRANGEMENTS IN FAR EAST 43 

both in the catching of fish and of other aquatic prod- 
ucts, and in manufacturing processes concerned with all 
such products. But the area open to them was no longer 
the whole of the Russian coast, as in the Portsmouth 
treaty, but somewhat restricted areas. A Protocol, atr 
tached to the Fisheries convention, defined these areas. 
The Japanese were specifically prohibited from fishing 
in the mouths of rivers and in a half-hundred or more 
enumerated bays and inlets. These exceptions were 
found to be necessary by Russia for both economic and 
strategic reasons. Moreover, the whole coast of the 
Sea of Okhotsk, which had not as yet been sufficiently 
explored, was subjected to a generalized restriction 
which provided that the Japanese could not fish in 
inlets the indentation of which exceeded by three times 
their width at the mouth. 

Outside of the restricted areas, however, the Japanese 
received full right to engage in fishing on an equal 
footing with the Russian subjects. The manner of 
granting concessions to the exploitation of any given 
fishing area, provided in the Fisheries convention, was 
that of an annual public auction, held by Russian 
Government officials at Vladivostok, with the Japanese 
subjects enjoying at these auctions the same rights as 
the Russian subjects. 



44 EUSSIA m THE FAE EAST 

In order to assure the Japanese this position of 
equality with the Russians in the exploitation of the 
fisheries in the conventional waters, the convention 
specifically provided that the Japanese should not be 
subjected to any restrictions or taxes, from which the 
Russians in the same locality may be exempt. On the 
other hand, of course, they were subjected to all the 
Russian laws with regard to the manner of exploitation, 
the employment of foreign labor, etc. The Russian 
Government agreed to impose no taxes on fish and 
aquatic products caught or prepared in the Maritime 
and the Amur Provinces, when intended for exportation 
to Japan, while the Japanese Government agreed to 
admit such products into Japan free of duty. The 
restrictions regarding non-conventional waters were to 
apply only to the process of fishing proper, but not to 
the processes of preparation and manufacture of fish 
and other aquatic products, with respect to which the 
Japanese were granted certain rights. 

The Fisheries convention was concluded for twelve 
years, and provisions were made for its renewal or 
imodification at the expiration of that period. 

Almost simultaneously with the Fisheries convention 
a General Political Convention between Russia and 
Japan was signed in St. Petersburg on July 30, 1907. 



TREATY ARRANGEMENTS IN TPAR EAST 45 

This convention signified the complete establishment of 
amicable relations between Eussia and Japan and, by 
its Article 2, pledged both Eussia and Japan to the 
principle of ^^open door" in China. This convention, 
however, was merely a screen to conceal the secret 
arrangements made at the same time between Eussia 
and Japan, which were of an entirely different nature. 

The Convention of 1907 was very short, consisting of 
only two articles. In Article 1 each of the contracting 
parties obligated itself to "respect the territorial in- 
tegrity of the other.'^ A similar obligation was 
assumed by each of the parties to respect the rights 
accruing to each of them from all agreements between 
them and China, operative on the date of the signing 
of the convention, as well as from the Portsmouth 
treaty and subsequent special agreements between 
Eussia and Japan. So far, the convention merely 
guaranteed the continuation of the general politico- 
economic conditions that had become established in the 
Far East, in so far as they concerned the interests of 
Eussia and Japan. 

Article 2 referred to China. The two contracting 
parties recognized the independence of China and the 
integrity of the territory of the Chinese Empire. But 
besides this they also recognized "the principle of the 



46 EUSSIA m THE FAE EAST 

general equality of rights with regard to trade and in- 
dustry in that Empire for all nations." And having thus 
solemnly proclaimed the principle of the "open door" 
in China, the two contracting parties undertook to 
"preserve and defend the status quo and the ahove- 
mentioned principle hy all peaceful means at their 

i disposal." * 

together with this Convention, Kussia concluded a 

secret treaty with Japan, signed on the same day. The 
text of this secret treaty is not availahle at the present, 
though its existence is estahlished definitely hy refer- 
ences to it found in the text of other secret treaties, as 
puhlished by the Bolsheviki soon after their accession 
to power in Eussia. It is therefore possible only to 
surmise the nature of the arrangements which were 
being concluded between the erstwhile enemies. Eefer- 
ences to this treaty, found in other secret documents 
published by the Bolsheviki, indicate very clearly that 
at least one provision of the secret treaty dealt with the 
question of the division of Eussian and Japanese 
spheres of influence in Manchuria, which was obviously 
in contradiction to the establishment of the principle 
of the "open door" in China in Article 2 of the General 
Political Convention, since by the provisions of the 

♦ For full text of this Convention see Appendix I, 



TREATY ARRANGEMENTS IN FAR EAST 47 

Portsmouth treaty Manchuria was to be completely 
restored to China, and consequently, in 1907, consti- 
tuted indisputably a part of the Chinese Empire. 

Eeferences in other secret documents published by the 
Bolsheviki indicate also the existence of two more secret 
treaties between Eussia and Japan, concluded before 
the World War, on July 4, 1910, and July 8, 1912. 
Again, the text of these treaties is not available, and 
their nature may be only surmised. 

One feature of all these agreements, however, appears 
certain. While the General Political Convention of 
1907 provided specifically that the contracting parties 
undertook to defend their interests in the Far East by 
"all peaceful means at their disposal," the secret treaties, 
concluded simultaneously with the Convention and on 
later occasions, dealt with distinctly military matters 
and contained provisions for martial preparations. The 
last secret agreement between Eussia and Japan was 
concluded in 1916. The text of this treaty was made 
available by its publication in the official organ of the 
Soviet Government soon after the Bolsheviki came to 
power.* 

The secret treaty of 1916 sheds a most interesting 



* Gazette of the Provisional Workmen»Peasant8 Government. Decem- 
ber 8 (21), 1917. 



48 EUSSIA IN THE FAE EAST 

light upon tlie relations which at that time existed 
between the Russian Imperial Government and the 
Government of Japan, as well as on the nature of the 
preceding secret agreements. The treaty began as 
follows : 

"The Eussian Imperial Government and the Japanese 
Imperial Government, for the purpose of further strengthen- 
ing their close friendship established between them by the 
secret agreements of July 17 (30), 1907, June 21 (July 4), 
1910, and June 25 (July 8), 1912, have agreed to supplement 
the above-mentioned secret agreements with the following 
articles." 

' The treaty itself dealt with the situation in China 
and the manner in which it was likely to affect the 
interests of Russia and Japan. Article 1 stated the 
agreement of the contracting parties on the need, so 
far as the "vital interests" of each of them was con- 
cerned, of preserving China "from the political domi- 
nation of any third power, holding inimical aims 
against Russia or Japan." The treaty foresaw an 
eventuality in which an attempt at such a dom- 
ination may be made, in which case one or the other 
of the contracting parties would consider itself 
called upon to take measures in order to prevent "the 
establishment (in China) of such a state of affairs." 
And if such measures should lead to a declaration of 
war upon one of the contracting powers by a third 



% 



TREATY ARRANGEMENTS IN FAR EAST 49 

power, tlie other contracting party undertook, by the 
terms of the treaty, to come to the assistance of its ally. 

The secret treaty of 1916 was thus a defensive alli- 
ance between Kussia and Japan, which pledged each 
of them to a war, in case the special interests that each 
of them sought to acquire in China should at any time 
be threatened. The two contracting Governments 
visualized the possibility of such a conflict as rather 
imminent at the time, for the agreement was concluded 
for the period of five years, to expire on July 14, 1921, 
but continue automatically after that, unless denounced 
by either of the parties. 

This agreement could have been directed against one 
of two groups of powers. The first was Germany and 
her allies, at that time still holding their own on the 
battlefields of the world war. But it is rather incon- 
ceivable that Russia and Japan should have felt their 
interests in China threatened by Germany. In the first 
place, Germany was never particularly interested in the 
Far East, but preferred, as we have already seen, to 
push Russia into dangerous ventures and experiments 
there. And in the second place, Germany could have 
been a menace only if victorious in the war, in which 
case both Russia and Japan would have been at her 
mercy as defeated enemies. There is no doubt that the 



60 EUSSIA m THE FAR EAST 

secret Eusso- Japanese agreement of 1916 was directed 
against the United States, as the power vitally inter- 
ested in the affairs of the Far East, particularly basing 
her whole policy there on the strict application of the 
principle of the "open door" in China. And it is inter- 
esting that in publishing the text of this agreement the 
Bolsheviki gave it the following significant title : 

"SECRET AGREEMENT BETWEEN RUSSIA AND 
JAPAN, witb Reference to a Possibility of Their Armed 
Conflict together against America and Great Britain in the 
Far East before the Summer of 1921/' * 

The secret treaty of 1916 was the last agreement 
concluded between Russia and Japan before the Russian 
Revolution. The imperialist elements in Russia and 
in Japan were close friends, akin in the spirit that 
actuated them. 

It is very interesting also to watch the interplay of 
Imperial Russia's network of diplomatic intrigue with 
Japan, as embodied in the open and secret agreements 
between them, against the background of the activities 

* For full text of this treaty see Appendix I. While the explanation 
of the purpose of this secret treaty given in the text is the current 
explanation, I have been informed by persons who have discussed the 
question with the former Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sazonov, 
that the Russian Government did have Germany in mind and that its 
chief purpose in signing the treaty was to bind Japan to the Entente 
by another agreement. Sazonov is reported as saying that Russia was 
at that time too busy with the problems of the war to give serious 
thought to possible aggression in China. Even if this explanation is 
true, nevertheless, by signing the secret treaty with Japan, Russia was 
giving the latter a powerful instrument for possible use in the near 
future, as may be clearly seen from the secret telegram on the Lansing- 
Ishii agreement, the text of which may also be found in Appendix I. 



TREATY ARRANGEMENTS IN FAR EAST 51 

whicli eacli of them pursued in various parts of China. 
Whether by tacit understanding or as a result of one 
of the secret agreements, the text of which is still un- 
known to us, Russia and Japan seem to have had no 
difficulty in delimiting the spheres of their activities. 
Japan maintained her paramount domination in Korea, 
in portions of Manchuria, and was rapidly and insist- 
ently building up her influence in other parts of China. 
Russia concentrated all her attention on Outer Mon- 
golia, where the Japanese let her have an entirely free 
hand. 

The basic agreement, under which Russia was con- 
ducting her diplomatic relations with China all through 
this period, was a thirty-year treaty, concluded in 1881, 
fundamentally built on a previous convention, viz., that 
of 1860. By virtue of these two agreements, the boun- 
dary line between Russia and China was well defined, 
and a provision was made for the establishment of a 
fifty-verst zone along the whole frontier, within which 
there were to be collected no customs duties. This pro- 
vision stimulated greatly the penetration of Russia into 
some portions of the Chinese territory, notably in 
Mongolia. 

Prior to the Russo-Japanese War, the interest which 
Mongolia held for the Russian Imperial Government 



52' ETJSSIA IN" THE FAR EAST 

was primarily commercial and economic generally. But 
after the war, when Russia found herself out of Korea 
and Manchuria, Mongolia began to loom large in the 
eyes of the Russian Government as a political possi- 
bility. Russian interest in Mongolia increased very 
greatly, and some ambitious Russian diplomats began 
even to dream of an independent Mongol state, under 
Russian influence and, possibly, suzerainty, constituting 
a living barrier between Russia and China. Such a 
barrier was thought necessary and desirable for two 
reasons. In the first place, should China pass through 
as rapid a transformation as Japan and appear on the 
scene as an active power, the Mongolian barrier would 
prove excellent protection to Russia — so ran the argu- 
ments of the protagonists of the Mongolian barrier. 
In the second place, as a base for economic penetration 
into China, Russian-controlled Mongolia would be a 
most valuable asset for whatever imperialistic designs 
the Russian Government still entertained. 

In 1910-11, as the time drew near for the expiration 
of the treaty of 1881, the Russian Government began 
to urge upon the Government of the Chinese Empire 
a renewal and revision of the treaty. One of the re- 
visions sought by the Russian Government was an 
enlargement of Russian rights in Mongolia. The 



TEEATY ARRANGEMENTS IN FAR EAST 53 

Chinese Government, however, persistently refused to 
accede to the Russian requests in this regard. In Octo- 
ber, 1911, the Chinese Revolution broke out and intro- 
duced a radical change in the whole situation. 

Even before the Revolution, however, in July, 1911, 
Hu-tukh-tu, the Living Buddha of Mongolia, convoked 
a council of Mongol princes to discuss the question of 
relations with the Chinese. Administratively, Mon- 
golia was part- of the Chinese territory and was ruled 
by Chinese officials who were despotic and oppressive. 
Their rule caused widespread dissatisfaction among the 
nomadic population of Mongolia, and the council of 
princes decided to seek Russia's protection. A delega- 
tion was sent to St. Petersburg, and the Russian Gov- 
ernment promised the Mongols to make representations 
in Peking. In accordance with this, Russia proposed 
to China an arrangement whereby Mongolia would be 
given administrative autonomy. But this proposal was 
rejected by the Chinese Government. 

Immediately following the Chinese Revolution, Mon- 
golia declared her independence, claiming that the over- 
throw of the Manchu dynasty absolved the Mongols from 
their allegiance to the central Government of China. 
Again the Mongols turned to Russia for protection, and 
the Russian Government proposed to the new Chinese 



54 RUSSIA IN" THE FAR EAST 

Government an arrangement with Mongolia similar to 
that of the preceding year. But the Chinese Govern- 
ment again rejected the Russian proposal. Then the 
Russian Government declared that it would negotiate 
directly with the Mongol authorities in Urga, the capital 
of Mongolia. The result of these negotiations was a 
treaty, concluded between Russia and Mongolia, in 
September, 1912. 

While, in concluding this treaty, Russia formally 
acknowledged the independence of Mongolia, she never- 
theless declared her willingness to recognize China's 
sovereignty over Mongolia on condition of the accept- 
ance by the Government at Peking of the conditions of 
Mongolian autonomy proposed originally by Russia. 
China entered a formal protest against the Russo- 
Mongolian treaty and refused to acknowledge it. Then 
negotiations began between Peking and St. Petersburg, 
and finally resulted in a Russo-Chinese-Mongolian 
agreement, signed in the city of Kyakhta, whereby Mon- 
golia was made into an autonomous state, with its 
Living Buddha as the supreme ruler, but under Chinese 
suzerainty.* By this agreement Russia secured valu- 
able rights and privileges on the territory of autono- 
mous Mongolia. 

* For the principal provisions of this tripartite agreement see 
Appendix II. 



( 



TEEATY AERANGEMENTS IN FAE EAST 55 

To what extent the events in Mongolia ever since 
1911 were the work of the agents of the Eussian Im- 
perial Government is not known, but that such agents 
had a hand in their unfolding, especially after the Chi- 
nese Kevolution, appears fairly certain. After the con- 
clusion of the Russo-Chinese Mongolian agreement, Rus- 
sian activities in Mongolia increased. And while 
Russia was busy with her Mongolian venture, Japan 
was pushing very energetically her own penetration in 
other parts of China. The open agreements between 
Imperial Russia and Imperial Japan remained merely 
the screen of the understanding between the two Gov- 
ernments; the spirit which animated the relations be- 
tween the two was the spirit of undisguised imperial- 
ism that permeated their secret agreements. 

In March, 1917, came the Russian Revolution and 
swept out of existence the Russian member of the 
Russo-Japanese imperialistic partnership. 



CHAPTEE V 

THE BOLSHEVIKI AND THE JAPANESE IN SIBEEIA 

During the World War and the first stages of the Revo- 
lution, Siberia acquired a great importance because it 
provided Eussia with heT best available means of com- 
munication with the outside world. The port of Vladi- 
vostok was literally the door to 'Eussia. Immense 
quantities of munitions and railroad supplies were 
brought in through it. 

The March Eevolution affected Siberia at the same 
time that it did the rest of Eussia, and its processes 
presented nothing novel. The authority of the Pro- 
visional Government was readily recognized, and the 
change at the center was acclaimed with great enthu- 
siasm. Then, during the months that followed, Siberia 
passed through the same process of the disintegration of 
the revolutionary ideas through which European Eussia 
passed and which eventually culminated in the over- 
throw of the Provisional Government in !N"ovember, 
1917, and the establishment of the so-called Soviet 

regime. 

56 



BOLSHEVIKI AND JAPANESE IN SIBEEIA 57 

The Soviet authority was introduced in Siberia soon 
after the establishment of the Soviet regime in European 
Eussia. It appeared in different centers at different 
dates, but by January, 1918, it was established in all 
the important parts of Siberia and the Far East. It 
existed until the late summer of that year, when various 
isolated uprisings, coupled with the appearance in 
Siberia of Allied forces landing from the East and the 
Czecho-Slovak detachments entering Siberia from the 
West, overthrew the Soviet authority everywhere. The 
establishment of the Omsk Government, by the removal 
thither of the Directorate elected by the members of the 
former Constituent Assembly at Oufa, furnished a 
center around which the anti-Bolshevist movement in 
I Siberia began to group itself. On November 18, 1918, 
I the Directorate was overthrown, and Admiral Kolchak 
assumed control. His rule lasted until the beginning 
of 1920, when his forces were crushed by the Ked 
Armies, while he himself was captured and executed. 
The Bolshevist armies marched nearly as far as Lake 
Baikal and there halted, pending negotiations with the 
political groups of Eastern Siberia.* 

* A detailed examination of the anti-Bolshevist movement in Siberia 
and an evaluation of its various factors is entirely outside the scope 
of this book. For this reason, the events that had taken place in 
Siberia and in the Far East prior to the establishment of the Far 
Eastern Republic are told here in their broad outlines. 



58 EUSSIA m THE FAE EAST 

The Allies withdrew their forces eastward with the 
retreat of Kolchak's armies, and eventually took them 
out of Siberia altogether. The only troops that re- 
mained over in Siberia were the Japanese. 

Practically all the Kussian groups in Siberia are 
agreed on accusing the Allies of never giving full-fledged 
support to the anti-Bolshevist movements in Siberia. 
But the most direct accusation was against the Japa- 
nese, who were numerically the largest foreign power 
in Siberia, and, for obvious reasons, were more 
directly concerned with the developments in Siberia 
than any of the others. The Japanese are specifically 
*' accused of never giving full support to the principal 
movement, but rather staking on individual leaders and 
playing them against each other. 
^ The part of Siberia which is of special concern to 
Japan is the territory lying between the seaboard and 
Lake Baikal. The key to this part of Siberia is the 
port of Vladivostok. During the existence of the Omsk 
Government almost this whole territority was only under 
a nominal control of that Government. Different parts 
of it were held by leaders of armed bands, some of 
them commanding rather large forces and enjoying 
outside assistance. The most important of these were 
the Atamans Semenov and Kalmykov, and General 



BOLSHEYIKI AND JAPANESE IN SIBERIA 59 

Kosanov. The latter was stationed in Vladivostok. 
While nominally under orders from Omsk, he acted, 
in reality, in an entirely independent manner, and his 
actions were offensive to all democratic elements. Many 
attempts were made at Omsk to have Rosanov removed, 
and finally, on October 25, 1919, Admiral Kolchak or- 
dered Rosanov to give up his command and come to 
Omsk. But Rosanov appealed to Semenov and Kalmy- 
kov for assistance, and having been assured of their 
support and — so the Vladivostok version runs — of the 
good-will of the Japanese, he refused to obey the order 
from Omsk. 

The Omsk Government could not enforce its au- 
thority, and Rosanov remained the virtual master of 
the situation. His rule in Vladivostok lasted until 
January 31, 1920, by which time his authority had 
degenerated entirely and its remnants were easily over- 
thrown by the partisan forces at the disposal of the 
Vladivostok Zemstvo, which then set up a Provisional 
Government. 

The next important event in the Russian Far East 
occurred on April 4-5, when a series of armed clashes 
took place between the Russian and Japanese troops. 
During the two months which preceded the clash the 
relations between the Japanese and the Russians in 



60 RUSSIA IN THE FAR EAST 

Vladivostok and the adjacent territory were becoming 
more and more strained. The allied troops were being 
evacuated, but the Japanese made no preparations for 
leaving. The Provisional Government, headed by the 
President of the Zemstvo, A. S. Medvyedev, maintained 
cordial relations with the Japanese political mission at 
Vladivostok, although its relations with the military 
command were strained. The Provisional Government 
declared as its object the ending of the civil war and the 
coming to some understanding with Moscow, and its 
chief objection against the Japanese was that they were 
not in favor of such a program. On the other hand, 
the Japanese objected most strenuously to the manner 
in which Medvyedev's Government attempted to hasten 
the evacuation of the Japanese troops. 

There seems to be no doubt that the hostility against 
the Japanese was something that the Provisional Gov- 
ernment could not control, even if it desired to do so. 
It was growing all the time and expressed itself more 
and more in open clashes. 

This growing hostility against the Japanese was 
accompanied by an increasing popularity of the Bol- 
sheviki, who were extremely active all the time. The 
liberal leaders realized that the Japanese would feel 
entirely free to take any military measures they chose, 



BOLSHEVIKI AND JAPANESE IN SIBERIA 61 

if a Soviet regime should become established in Vladi- 
vostok and they attempted to prevent such an eventu- 
ality warning the extreme elements of the danger of 
the situation. /^ 

These warnings were not heeded, however, by the 
local Bolshevist groups, while the departure of the 
American troops left the Japanese alone in the field, who 
then apparently decided to take effective measures. On . 
April 2 an ultimatum was presented to the Provisional 
Government. The substance of the ultimatum was that 
there should be no interference with the actions of the 
Japanese military authorities, so far as those actions 
concerned military affairs; that all activities of secret 
groups or societies considered harmful for the Japa- 
nese troops or for Manchuria and Korea should be for- 
bidden ; that all publications directed against the Japa- 
nese Empire, its existence or its army, should be sup- 
pressed. 

On April 3, the Soviet of Workmen's and Peasant's 
Deputies met in Vladivostok, as if in answer to the Jap- 
anese ultimatum. On the next day, the Provisional Gov- 
ernment accepted the Japanese ultimatum in its entirety, 
but it was already too late. Everything was ready for 
an explosion; only the first spark was lacking, and it 
was supplied on the night of that same day. Although 



62 RUSSIA IlSr THE FAR EAST 

the Provisional Government officially denied it, the 
Japanese command claimed that during the night Jap- 
anese patrols were fired upon in some parts of the city, 
and on the following morning, General Oi, commanding 
the troops at Vladivostok, ordered all Russian troops 
disarmed. This order was carried out with considerahle 
bloodshed, both in Vladivostok and in J^ikolsk and 
IQiabarovsk. 

The Provisional Government disclaimed responsi- 
bility for the attacks on the Japanese patrols and en- 
tered into negotiations with the Japanese military com- 
mand for the adjustment of the situation. An agree- 
ment was finally signed in Vladivostok on April 29. 
By virtue of this agreement no Russian troops were to 
be permitted within thirty kilometers of the Ussuriysk 
and the Suchansk railroad lines and of the China- 
Korea border. The only exception was made in the 
case of militia on police duty, but its number was to 
be determined only by agreement with the Japanese 
command. 

Thus the Japanese military command assumed 
absolute control of all the means of transportation and 
the Suchansk coal mines. The Provisional Govern- 
ment was not forbidden to have troops of its own, but 
it was cut off from all sources of military supplies. 



BOLSHEYIKI AND JAPANESE IN SIBERIA 63 

And wliat was even more important, practically all cities 
and towns of importance, with tlie exception of two or 
three small ones, came under the military control of 
the Japanese, for they are all situated on or near the 
railroad lines. 

No wonder that the chief representative of the Rus- 
sian command said: ^^It is with a heavy feeling that 
we, the representatives of the Russian military com- 
mand, sign this agreement." 

Nor was this all. At ahout the same time, a hand 
of partisan troops was reported marching toward the 
city on Nikolayevsk, at the mouth of the Amur river, 
which had a considerahle Russian population and a 
small Japanese garrison. Various and conflicting 
stories are told as to what happened during the strug- 
gle for the city, some accounts even making the Japa- 
nese command in Siberia directly responsible for the 
city's inability to offer sufficient resistance. In any 
event, the occupation of the city was accompanied by a 
horrible massacre, as a result of which 700 Japanese 
and 4,000 Russians lost their lives. 

Whatever were the circumstances under which the 
Nikolayevsk tragedy took place, it provided the Japa- 
nese with an excuse for occupying the city and thus 
acquiring possession of the mouth of the Amur river. 



II 



64 EUSSIA IN THE FAR EAST 

Moreover, not content with the occupation of Kikolay- 
evsk, the Japanese also occupied the northern, or Rus- 
sian, half of the island of Sakhalin, which lies oppo- 
site the mouth of the Amur. 

A little later, Japanese warships appeared off the 
coast of Kamchatka, a landing of military forces was 
effected, and, according to a reliahle report, a military 
post and a radio station was constructed there. 

Thus, by the summer of 1920, practically the whole 
seaboard of Siberia was in the hands of the Japanese, 
held by them on terms of military occupation. 

In the meantime, while all this was going on, a new 
plan was unfolding itself in Eastern Siberia, a plan of 
creating a temporarily independent state on the Rus- 
sian territory lying east of Lake Baikal, that would 
act as a ^'buffer" between Soviet Russia and Japan. 
This idea grew out of the circumstances that charac- 
terized the political situation in Eastern Siberia prior 
to the overthrow of the Kolchak Government. 

Admiral Kolchak was deposed and his regime was 
overthrown in Irkutsk shortly after the seat of gov- 
ernment was removed thither from Omsk. The over- 
throw was effected by the so-called Political Center, 
created some time before that by the liberal Zemstvo 
elements. In October, 1919, a conference of repre- 



BOLSHEVIKI AND JAPANESE IN SIBERIA 65 

sentatives of sixteeoi Zemstvos in Eastern Siberia took 
place and decided upon tlie overthrow of the Kolchak 
Government on the ground that it had degenerated into 
an utterly reactionary regime. The groups represented 
at this conference later on created the Political Center, 
and assumed authority on the deposing of the Admiral. 
The idea of creating a '^buffer" state was originally 
brought forward by these groups. 

One of the first actions of the Political Center after 
assuming authority was to enter into negotiations with 
the Soviet authorities concerning the idea of the "buffer'^ 
state. On January 19, 1920, a conference took place 
at Tomsk, between the representatives of the Irkutsk 
groups and the Soviet leaders. It was decided to create 
such a state with its capital at Irkutsk, and on Sep- 
tember 21 Moscow sanctioned this agreement by tele- 
graph. 

But even before the Irkutsk delegates returned from 
Tomsk, the Government which they represent-ed was 
overthrown by the local Bolsheviki, and the whole 
western part of the proposed ''buffer" state was offi- 
cially declared part of the Soviet territory. However, 
tbe idea of the ''buffer'' state was not given up. The 
city of Verkhneudinsk was declared capital of the new 
state, and Moscow hastened to recognize it. 



66 RUSSIA IN THE FAR EAST 

The situation that became established as a result of 
all this by the beginning of the summer of 1920, was 
as follows: the Soviet authority officially extended as 
far as the Verkhneudinsk "buffer'^ state. Beyond the 
^'buffer/' which was controlled from Moscow, was 
Chita and its district, controlled by Ataman Semenov, j 
who resisted all pressure from the west and from the 
east and was openly supported by the Japanese. On 
the coast was the Provisional Government of the Mari- 
time Province, located in Vladivostok, but practically 
powerless because of the conditions of the Japanese 
control. Besides these larger centers, there were sev- 
eral of lesser importance, but nevertheless powers unto 
themselves. Such were Blagovyeshchensk and Khaba- 
rovsk. During the summer, a number of attempts were 
made to unite all these independent groups into one 
state, but it was not until the fall of 1920 that such a 
unification was finally effected. 

During this period there were three elements in the 
situation. The first element comprised the Bolshevist 
or Communist groups, directed from Moscow. The sec- 
ond consisted of the Japanese, who dominated the situ- 
ation. The third element consisted of the local non- 
Bolshevist groups, finding themselves wedged in between 
their fear of permanent Japanese control of the terri- 






BOLSHEVIKI AND JAPANESE IN SIBERIA 67 

tory and its consequent loss to Russia, and tlie alterna- 
tive of making peace with tlie Bolsheviki. They chose 
the second course. At the Tomsk conference, the 
leader of the Irkutsk delegation expressed the views of 
these groups in the following way: 

"We are not speaking here of any moral or academic 
considerations; we are interested in a mere evaluation of 
forces. If Soviet Russia has at the present time sufficient 
strength to crush the Japanese reaction and the Japanese 
militarism, then the question is very simple: let the Soviet 
troops continue their march to Irkutsk and on beyond 
Irkutsk. Then no 'buffer' state is necessary. But if Soviet 
Russia does not possess such forces at the present time, then, 
for the sake of preserving the unity of Russia and the re- 
unification of Eastern Siberia with the rest of Russia, it is 
necessary to create a special democratic formation. As far 
as Soviet Russia is concerned, the creation of such a ^buffer' 
state would be rendered easier for it by the fact that the 
Siberian democracy will not conduct a struggle against it. 
The Siberian democracy has determined quite firmly the line 
it is to follow: the giving up of all struggle on the western 
frontier of Siberia, and the concentration of all forces on 
the eastern frontier for a struggle against the reaction." * 

In the negotiations which were conducted between 
the Japanese and the Soviet representatives during this 
period, the former were inclined to accept the idea of 
the "buffer" state, provided its forms of organization 
would not be Communistic. On the other hand, the 
Soviet representatives readily assured the Japanese 

* From a speech by E. E. Kolossov, quoted in Sovremennyia Zapiski, 
No. 3, for 1921. 



68 RUSSIA m THE FAR EAST 

that the "buffer" would have forms of government that 
would he quite acceptable to them. As early as April, 
the Soviet Plenipotentiary in the Far East, V. D. 
Yilensky, assured the head of the Japanese Diplomatic 
Mission, Count Matzudaira, that the Soviet Govern- 
ment considered the "buffer" state as "a zone, in which 
the capitalistic activities of the foreigners, particularly 
the Japanese, could be carried on in conditions more 
customary for them than would have been the existence 
of Soviet forms." * 

An obstacle to the creation of a unified "buffer" in 
Eastern Siberia was the existence of the barrier between 
Verkhneudinsk and Vladivostok in the form of the 
Semenov Government at Chita. The Japanese com- 
mand was inclined to remain on friendly terms with 
the Ataman, and as late as June, 1920, the Central 
Information Bureau of Vladivostok reported the fol- 
lowing interview with General Takayanaga, Chief of 
Staff of the Japanese expeditionary forces : 

^The General considers that the territory controlled by 
Semenov must be considered as a separate political entity in 
the negotiations for the unification of the Far Eastern forma- 
tions. According to Semenov's claims, his authority is sup- 
ported by at least 75 per cent, of the population, by the 
Cossacks, the Buryats and a part of the Zemstvos. The 
liquidation of the barrier is desirable, but it must be done 

* Vladirostok DalnevoatocTmoye Ohozreniye, April 29, 1920. 



BOLSHEVIKI AND JAPANESE IN SIBERIA 69 

without violence, through agreement on the part of the 

political groups and a free expression of the will of the 
people." * 



In spite of this, efforts were continued to call a con- 
ference, representing the whole of Eastern Siheria. 
Finally, arrangements for such a conference were com' 
pleted, and the final attempt was made to eliminate 
Semenov. On the night of Octoher 21, a surprise at- 
tack was undertaken against Chita, Semenov was de- 
feated and the city was occupied by the troops of the 
Verkhneudinsk Government. Several days later, the 
conference for the creation of the ^'buffer" state met in 
Chita. It consisted of representatives of Verkhneu- 
dinsk, Chita, Blagovyeshchensk, and Vladivostok. The 
result of the conference was that the four territories 
agreed to unite into a state to be known as the Far 
Eastern Republic, and that elections were to be held to 
elect a Constituent Assembly. 

These elections were held at the beginning of 1921, 
and returned a peasant majority, though the elections 
were so manipulated that the Communists actually eon- 
trolled the Assembly. 

To what extent is the Far Eastern Republic under 
the control of Moscow? This is the question that ac- 

♦ Vladivostok DalnevoBtochnoue Ohoereniye, June 2, 1920. 



70 RUSSIA m THE FAR EAST 

quires vital importance in connection with the whole 
situation in the Far East. Speaking at the Chita con- 
ference!, the first premier, of the Far Eastern Re- 
public, Krasnoshchekov, said: 

"Our Republic has a sign, and there is writing on both 
sides of the sign. On one side it is written, 'Democracy/ 
What is inscribed on the other side is for us, for our own 
consumption." 

The story of its organization, the purpose for which it 
has been organized, and the activities of the Far Eastern 
Republic, as we shall see later on, indicate unmistakably 
that it is completely under the control of Moscow. It 
is a truly vassal formation of Soviet Russia. 

The Far Eastern Republic merely represents a meth- 
od by which the Bolsheviki and the Japanese are at- 
tempting to carry out their policies in Siberia. Of and 
by itself it is of comparatively little importance and 
interest. But as a channel for the activities of these 
two elements in the Russian Far East, it has a distinct 
significance and interest. 



CHAPTEE YI 

THE THIRD INTERNATIONAL IN ASIA 

Domination in Siberia and in tlie Russian mid-Asiatic 
possessions could not, of course, satisfy the Moscow 
leaders. In their dreams of a world social revolution, 
Asia with her numberless millions always loomed very 
large. And soon after the establishment of their power 
in Siberia through the overthrow of tte Kolchak Gov-, 
emment, the Communist leaders turned their attention 
definitely to activities in different parts of Asia. 

"Real revolution on a world scale will not begin until 
Asia's eight hundred millions of people will join our move- 
ment." 

With these words, constituting the central point of 
his address at the Baku Congress of the Nations of the 
Orient, G. Zinoviev, president of the executive commit- 
tee of the Third or Communist International, pro- 
claimed, in the summer of 1920, the policy and the aim 
of the Communist movement in Asia. 

It is almost a paradox that a group of men who have 

71 



72 RUSSIA IN THE FAR EAST 

1 

thought out, in the very heart of the civilization of the | 
West, their ideas of social philosophy and the methods 
of applying these ideas should now be the inspirers and 
the leaders of this agitation of the East against the 
West. Yet it is the Third International, the Moscow 
General Staff of the World Revolution, that in the 
summer of 1920 began to make attempts to organize, 
co-ordinate and lead through its various agencies and 
instrumentalities the numerous and variegated move- 
ments which agitate the Orient. And today, every- 
where in Asia, from the shores of the Mediterranean to 
the utmost reaches of China, from the tundras of 
I^orthem Siberia to the southernmost point of India, 
the agents of Communism are at work, bending all their 
energies toward the consummation of their ends.. 

Movements of all sorts agitated the Orient before the 
leaders of the world Communism thought of diverting 
the energies and the forces thus aroused to their own 
ends. But these movements were sporadic, poorly or- 
ganized, in most cases mutually antagonistic, with 
scarcely any coordination, either in the aims they pur- 
sued or the methods they used. Moreover, the aims of 
most of these movements have been and still are either 
not in correspondence with or even directly opposed to 
the aims which the world Communism sets before itself. 



THE THIED INTERNATIOlSrAL IN ASIA 73 

Yet these difficulties do not deter the Third Inter- 
national from making an attempt to befriend and con- 
trol all these movements. For the tactics of Communism 
render not only permissible but actually necessary the 
utilization of movements that are not Communistic in 
their nature, provided those movements are working 
toward the disruption or the destruction of institutions 
and organizations which it is necessary for Communism 
to disrupt or destroy in order to achieve its objects. 
And so confident are the leaders of Communism of the 
ultimate triumph of their aims that they are willing, 
for reasons of expediency, to permit their oftentimes 
incongruous allies to enjoy temporarily a triumph of 
their particular aims, achieved with the assistance of 
the masters of Communism. N^owhere are these tactics 
illustrated better than in the work which the active 
agencies of Communism are doing in the East. 

There are two lines of activities that are pursued 
there by the general staff of the revolution in Moscow, 
and out of the two there rapidly emerges now a third, 
more formidable than either of the others. Through 
its various channels of propaganda the Third Intema-- 
tional makes every effort to bring down to the widest 
possible masses of the Orient the simplest of the ideas 
of Communism, the doctrine of destruction, that would 



74 RUSSIA m THE FAR EAST 

set them aflame and prepare them for an uprising, in 
which the Communist leaders hope their trusted agents 
will be the guiding spirits. Through the diplomatic 
agencies which now constitute such an important part 
of the Eussian Soviet Government, the leaders of Com- 
munism make active efforts to bring within the sphere 
of their influence all the official and semi-official, formu- 
lated and half-formulated governmental centers of the 
Orient. Finally, under the protection and with the 
complete assistance of Moscow and its military organi- 
zation, armed forces are being brought into existence in 
some parts of the Orient. 

In order to co-ordinate the work of propaganda in 
different parts of Asia, the Third International, at the 
time of its Second World Congress, held in Moscow in 
July and August, 1920, decided to call a special con- 
ference of the representatives of the various movements 
in the countries and territories of the Near and Far 
East that are either in sympathy or at least in contact 
with the Communist movement. For the seat of this 
Conference, the city of Baku, the important oil port on 
Nthe Caspian Sea, was chosen. An appeal was issued by 
the executive committee of the Third International, 
signed by its president and also by delegates to the 



THE THIED INTERNATIONAL IN ASIA 75 

Second Congress from the most important countries of 
the world, including the United States. X, 

This conference, known officially as the Congress of 
the Nations of the Orient, opened on September 1, 1920, 
and lasted for more than two weeks. It represented 
twenty nationalities of the Near East, Central Asia and 
the Far East, among them the following: Turkey, 
China, Turkestan, Hindustan, Daghestan, Khiva, 
Bokhara, Armenia, Persia, Afghanistan, Georgia, 
Azerbaijan. 

The outstanding figure at the Baku Congress was 
G. Zinoviev, the president of the executive committee 
of the Third International and the head of the govern- 
ment in Petrograd, one of the most active and promi- 
nent leaders of the Communist movement. Zinoviev 
was chosen honorary president of the congress, and de- 
livered an address at the opening session in which he 
stated the program which the Third International ex- 
pected the movements represented at the Baku Congress 
to carry out. 

At the outset of his address Zinoviev noted particu- 
larly the fact that the congress in Baku, organized under 
the auspices of the Communist International, really 
represented, as far as the majority of its delegates was 



76 EXJSSIA m THE FAR EAST 

concerned, movements that are not Communistic in 
their nature. But this circumstance was more than 
offset, in the opinion of the International, by the fact 
that the congi*ess represented for the first time at least 
tentative unity of purpose and action on the part of 
twenty or more nations of the Orient which had been 
until then either isolated from each other or more or 
less hostile to each other. The great task of the co^ 
gross was to find common ground upon which these na- 
tions could unite for co-operation and the strength of 
collective effort. 

This common ground the Communist movement 
makes it its object to supply and develop. The nations 
of the Orient have differences of old standing and mu- 
tual enmities that are traditional. But at the same 
time all of them have grievances that may be reduced 
to simple terms and a common denominator. All of 
them find themselves in a condition of political and 
economic dependence upon the so-called great powers 
of the world. A compounding of these grievances, an 
accumulation of hostilities springing from these griev- 
ances, and a consequent releasing of forces and energies 
which may be turned against the dominating powers — 
all these, if properly directed and handled, may be or- 
ganized for an active struggle. This work of organiz- 



/ 



THE THIRD INTERNATIONAL IN ASIA 77 

ing the force's in the Orient is the aim of the Third 
International in its activities in Asia. The stimula- 
tion of this work was the object of the Baku Congress. 

Eevolution in the Orient, sweeping like wildfire x 
through all the expanses of Asia — that is the ideal of .,,■ 
Communism. Revolution, as conceived by the Com- 
munist movement, is and must he a world-wide aifair. 
But it is not proceeding at an even pace or developing 
into similar forms in the West and in the East. There 
are really two streams of the world revolution. That 
of the West Zinoviev characterized in his speech as rapid 
and turbulent and direct, hurling itself in a definite 
direction, making rapid inroads into all those phases 
of life in the West which it must traverse in order to 
reach the goal toward which it is striving. The stream 
in the East is slow and hesitant. The nations of the 
West, whose powers and efforts feed the stream of the 
revolution there, know what they want and proceed to 
get it. The nations of the East have not as yet awak^^ 
ened to definite and complete desires. The stream of 
the revolution fed by their movements has, in conse- 
quence, different characteristics from the stream in the 
West. 

It is the object of the directing center of the world 
Communist movement, the Third International, to 



7S KUSSIA IN THE FAR EAST 

work for the uniting of these two streams. But such a 
union is possible only if the forces which direct, stimu- 
late and hurl forward the stream of the West should 
turn their attention to the stream of the East, in order 
to arouse its activities and bring them to a pitch which 
would make the movements that make it up a really 
effective factor for the world revolution. 

Whatever the movements in the East which were 
represented at the Baku Congress have now as their 
aim, ultimately their efforts must result in the estab- 
lishment of Communism there. But none of the coun- 
tries of the Orient or of the territories which have not 
as yet risen to the dignity of statehood has anything 
like the degree of capitalistic development which is 
usually presupposed as a necessary condition for the 
establishment of Communism. In other words, is it 
necessary to wait until capitalistic development should 
come to the Orient before attempting to light up there 
the fires of revolution which would eventually lead to 
the establishment of Communism? 

Zinoviev answered this query in a negative sense, and 
offered a very general and simple formula, universally 
applicable in its simplicity. As long as Soviet power 
has become established in Russia or in any other one 
country, that is the signal and the guarantee of success 



THE THIED INTEENATIONAL IN" ASIA 79 

for any movement looking to the establishment of 
Communism in any country, even if that country is 
V economically backward. 

In its application to the countries of the Orient this 
formula assumes a very definite political form^ in tacti- 
cal conformity with the general character of the move- 
ments actually existing there. These movements are 
either agrarian or national-democratic in character. 
The first kind of movements assures the participation of 
the great masses of the people, for the vast majority of 
the population of Asia is agricultural. The system of 
landholding in most of the countries there is such that 
the best lands are generally held by large land proprie- 
tors on the basis of very extensive holdings and of an 
exploitation of the masses of the people. Resentment 
on the part of the peasantry against such an agrarian 
scheme may easily be turned to account, provided 
enough propaganda can be conducted among the peas- 
antry with the view of convincing them that the chief 
cause of such a state of affairs lies in the fact of their 
economic and territorial dependence upon the particular 
great power which holds the protectorate over their 
country. In this way the agrarian movements which 
have narrow and immediate aims may be used as a 
powerful adjunct of the other kind of movements, the 



80 RUSSIA m THE FAB EAST 

control over whicli the leaders of the Communist move- 
ment are striving to seize — namely, movements for the 
political independence or the liberation from economic 
domination of the countries and the territories of the 
Orient. 

These political or national-democratic movements are\ 
essentially of two kinds. In countries like China, Tur- 
key, Persia, which have officially independent existence 
as sovereign states, but are in reality politically and 
economically dependent upon one or another of the 
great powers active in the affairs of Asia, the national- 
democratic movements have the character of a struggle 
against this unofficial but nevertheless real political and y 
economic dependence. In countries like India, which 
even officially do not have the status of sovereign states, 
these movements, in their political aspects, assume the 
character of a struggle for independence. The task of 
Communism is to render sufficient assistance to these 
movements to exact from them in return pledges to 
accept the Soviet form of government, once their inde- 
pendence or complete liberation is achieved. 

Soviets must be organized throughout the Orient. 
This is the order of the day from the general staff of 
the world revolution. And they must be real Soviets 
— so Zinoviev admonished the delegates to the Baku 



THE THIED INTERNATIONAL IN ASIA 81 

Congress; not toy Soviets of the kind that exists in 
Turkey. Yet the Communists in Moscow are ready to 
support even these toy Soviets if there are any pros- 
pects of utilizing whatever force they may represent. 
Zinoviev himself illustrated this by giving a vivid de- 
scription of the character of that movement in Turkey 
which had then the support of the Third International 
and of the Moscow government, the peasant movement 
in Anatolia, the Turkish province in Asia Minor, led 
by Mustapha Kemal. This movement is essentially 
religious in character and as different from Communism 
as day from night. 

According to Zinoviev the only thing that Kemal is 
fighting for is the re-establishment of the religious su- 
premacy of the Sultan. To Kemal the person of the 
Sultan is sacred, although in deference to present-day 
tendencies he has invented a title for him that is in 
keeping with the general trend of modem affairs. The 
Sultan, as he is represented by Kemal and his follow- 
ers to the peasants whom they urge to rise at their bid- 
ding, is the President of the Democratic Union of the 
Islamic Nations. But at the present time the Sultan 
has fallen into the power of foreign non-believers, and 
his exalted position has become degraded. Kemal has 
declared a holy war against the invader for the purpose 



82 RUSSIA m THE FAR EAST 

of saving the Sultan from this degradation and freeing 
him from his enemies. 

If such is the character of the Kemal movement it 
is logically absurd and paradoxical for Communism to 
support it. And yet it has enjoyed that support, because 
there is one element in it which, in the estimation of 
the Communist leaders, offsets all the possible contra- 
dictions to the Communist movement itself that there 
may be in the monarchic-religious movement led by 
Kemal and disguised but very thinly by his clumsy 
adaptations of modern terminology. That element lies 
in the fact that the Kemal movement is primarily di- 
rected against Great Britain as the great European 
power with extensive interests and influence in the Near 
East. In relating the circumstances under which Com- 
munism finds it possible to support such a movement as 
that led by Kemal, Zinoviev laid down the most impor- 
tant of the fundamental theses of the whole policy and 
program of Communism in Asia. 

In his own words this policy is: "We are ready to 
support any revolutionary struggle against Great 
Britain." 

/ In presenting this program to the Baku Congress 
and in laying down the fundamentals of the Communist 



THE THIRD INTERISTATIONAL IN ASIA 83 

policy in the East, Zinoviev, in the name of the Third 
International, appealed to the nations of the Orient to 
co-ordinate all their efforts for a struggle against the ^y^ 
European power in the East. 

The watchword under which this struggle was to be 
carried on was presented by him to the congress in the 
following form : "Declare a holy war against European 
imperialism, particularly against Great Britain." 

This watchword was adopted by the congress, and 
efforts began to be made to write it in plain letters 
upon the standards of every revolutionary movement in 
the East. 

The Baku Congress resulted in two definite actions.*V 
The firsjt consisted in a signed pledge to fight the world 
capitalism. Besides the signatures of the delegates 
from the Oriental countries, the pledge bears also those 
of many of the guests at the congress — that is, of promi- 
nent leaders of Communism from Soviet Russia, as well 
as other countries of the world, including the United 
States, who attended the congress. The second action 
of the Baku Congress was the organization of a Council 
for Propaganda and Action in the Countries of the 
Orient. This Council was elected at the congress to 
act as the agent of the executive committee of the Third 



84 RUSSIA IJSr THE FAE EAST 

International, which now issues its instructions to the 
various leaders of the movements in the East through 
this Council. 

The Baku Congress was intended particularly to 
serve the purpose of organizing an apparatus of propa- ' 
ganda in the various countries of Asia. It represented 
movements which are essentially revolutionary in char- 
acter. It did not, of course, represent the nations 
themselves in which these movements exist. In each 
one of these countries there is a political organization 
which finds its expression in definite governmental in- 
stitutions. The Baku Congress was convoked for the 
purpose of reaching the movements, hut Communism is 
not content with reaching them alone. Wherever pos- 
sible it strives to exert its influence also over the gov- 
ernmental institutions. \^ 

This requires the work of diplomacy, and for this 
purpose the Commissariat of Foreign Affairs of the 
Soviet Government and its various diplomatic agencies 
are utilized by the Third International to the largest 
extent possible. 

During the months following the first steps in the 
organization of Communist work in Asia, the Soviet 
diplomacy devoted considerable attention to China, as 
a politically independent power, presumably amenable 



THE THIRD INTERNATIONAL IN ASIA 85 

to diplomatic influences. The general political situa- 
tion in China, as the Soviet diplomats visualized it, was 
characterized during the year 1920 by the fact that the 
government which existed there at the beginning of that 
year was pro-Japanese in its sympathies and orienta- 
tion. The Anfu party, which was in power, was re- 
sponsible for the Japanese-Chinese agreement which 
rendered possible the penetration of the Japanese influ- 
ence into China, and, if we take for it the word of the 
Soviet experts on Far Eastern affairs, placed China en- 
tirely under the domination of Japan. Through its 
agencies in Siberia, ever since the collapse of the Kol- 
chak movement, the Soviet Government has been doing 
everything in its power to effect the overthrow of this 
government. 

The Soviet diplomatic plan was built on the follow- 
ing considerations: China has for her neighbors two 
powers which are antagonistic to each other — namely, 
Japan and Soviet Russia. As long as the Anfu group 
remained in power and continued its pro-Japanese 
orientation the chances of any influence in the affairs of 
China that could be exerted by Soviet Russia were very 
small. On the other hand, the policy pursued by the 
Anfu group was never popular among the masses 
of the people in China; there has been a growing and 



86 RUSSIA IN THE FAR EAST 

widespread opposition to the Japanese. This opposi-^ 
tion was counted upon by the Soviet agents as a possible 
instrument for the overthrow of the pro- Japanese / 
regime. They expected that if properly stimulated and 
directed this popular opposition would eventually trans- 
fer its resentment against the Japanese to the whole 
Anfu group and its regime, fastening upon it the blame 
for the Japanese domination. If such transferred reK^ 
sentment could result in an overthrow of the Anfu 
regime, it was reasonable to expect, according to the 
Soviet diplomatic plan, that its successor in power, hav- 
ing broken with the Japanese orientations, would have 
to seek a rapprochement with the other of China's 
neighbors — that is, with Soviet Eussia. 

When the Anfu regime fell, its place was taken by a 
strongly anti-Japanese regime, in which the power be- 
hind the throne was, for the time being. General Wu-/ ■ 
Pei-Fu. The Soviet diplomats interpreted this change 
as signifying unquestionably the imminence of a defi- 
nite Chinese orientation in favor of and in the direc- 
tion of Soviet Russia. V. Vilensky, the former high 
commissary of the Soviet Government in Siberia and 
one of the most prominent Soviet experts on the Far 
East, in an article devoted to this phase of the Far 



THE THIED INTEENATIONAL IN ASIA 87 

Eastern situation,* cbaracterized the change in the 
Chinese regime in the following terms : 

"Wu-Pei-Fu has hung out his flag over the events which 
are taking place in China, and it is clear that under this flag 
the new Chinese cabinet must take an orientation in favor 
of Soviet Russia/' 

In arguing for what he called the "logical and ob- 
jective necessity" of such a step on the part of the 

Chinese Government, Vilensky cited three definite ac- 

" — •—- - - — » 

jfcions then already taken by the latter in the direction 
of establishing friendly relations with Moscow. The 
first s tep was initiated by Moscow, and sanctioned by 
Peking. It consisted of a commercial treaty signed by /^ 
the representatives of the Soviet authorities in Russian 
Turkestan and the group in power in Chinese Turkes- 
tan. The treaty provided for the establishment of 
diplomatic as well as commercial representation in both 
territories, and the total mutual abrogation of exterri- 
torial rights. The contact thus established provided 
Soviet Russia with an unmolested access into China. 
Officially the Turkestan treaty was not valid until ap- 
proved by Moscow and Peking. The Moscow sanction 
was naturally not long in coming. The sanction from 
Peking, given September, 1920, finally settled the mat- 

* Moscow Izvestiya, October 9, 1920. 



88 RUSSIA IN THE FAR EAST 

ter, and Soviet Russia acquired a recognized frontier 
with China, regulated by treaty. 

The second step of the Chinese Government in the 
direction of a rapprochement v^ith Soviet Russia, ac- 
cording to Vilensky, indicated still further the correct- 
ness of the Moscow^ analysis of the diplomatic situa- 
tion in the Far East. Under the Anfu regime China 
still continued to recognize officially the Russian am- 
bassador remaining there after the overthrow of the 
Provisional Government. All diplomatic courtesy was 
extended to him, and his status was more or less for- 
mally acknowledged. The action of the Peking govern- 
ment in refusing to continue the recognition of this 
status of the Russian ambassador, announced on Sep- 
tember 23, 1920, was logically a preliminary step to 
the negotiations which China was expected to inaugu- 
rate with Moscow. 

This second step was almost immediately followed 
by the third, for which it obviously cleared the way. A 
Chinese military-diplomatic mission was sent to Soviet 
Russia, reaching Moscow at the end of September. This 
mission, headed by General Chjan-Si-Lin, one of the 
younger followers of Wu-Pei-Fu was charged with the 
task of negotiating with the Commissariat of Foreign 
Affairs. The tenor of these negotiations was obviously 



THE THIKD INTERNATIONAL IN ASIA 89 

an attempt to push China into an armed conflict with^ 
Japan, with which, incidentally, the Soviet diplomats 
were at that time negotiating for an agreement through 
the instrumentality of their diplomatic agents in the 
Far East and through the Far Eastern Repuhlic. 

But it was not merely as a cat's-paw against Japan 
that the Soviet Government is ready to use China and 
her possibilities. We must always remember when 
dealing with any of the activities of the Soviet Govern- 
ment that it has no policies of its own, but that what- 
ever step it undertakes is of necessity in furtherance 
of the larger plans of the Third International, that gen- 
eral staif of the world revolution. The International 
and the Soviet Government are parts of the same 
mechanism; the International therefore is behind the 
activities of the Moscow Commissariat of Foreign Af- 
fairs. Now what is the situation in China from the 
point of view of the Communist International ? 

According to the report presented to the Second 
Congress of the Third International by the Chinese 
delegate, Lai,* the nationalist-revolutionary movement 
in China has been stimulated particularly by the fact 
that, as he expressed it, "China was refused everything 

* For text of this report, as well as other reports on the Communist 
situation in various countries of Asia, mentioned below, see a Memo- 
randum, entitled "The 2nd Congress of the Third or Communist Inter- 
national," published by the Department of State in 1920. 



90 RUSSIA m THE FAR EAST 

at the Peace Conference." This movement of resent- 
ment, headed very largely by students and by the indus- 
trial elements of Shanghai, took the form of strikes 
and of similar manifestations of discontent and protest. 
The shifting in the political scenery of China, of which 
we have already spoken and which took place since the , 
congress, indicates what forms the activities of these 
elements in China have assumed. | 

Delegate Lai's report discussed also the agrarian and ] 
the industrial situation from the point of view of Com- 
munism. The two outstanding features of the agrarian ' 
situation in China are the absence of large landed 
estates and the general shortage of land. The over- 
whelming majority of the population in China is agri- j 
cultural, and the problem of land shortage is a very 
real one there. An agrarian movement therefore is 
scarcely possible, because it would have nothing to 
strive for. The solution of the problem resulting from 
the agricultural and agrarian crisis is obviously in in- 
dustrial development, which would divert large num- 
bers of the surplus rural population to the industrial 
centers and relieve the land shortage as far as possible. 
At the present time, however, China's industrial devel- 
opment is a thing that scarcely has any existence at all. 
According to Lai's statement, the industrial proletariat 



THE THIKD INTERNATIONAL IN ASIA 91 

in China is just beginning to come into existence. But 
whatever there is of it, weak as it is in numbers, the 
industrial proletariat of China is violently revolution- 
ary in its tendencies. \ 

The intensity of the nationalist revolutionary move- 
ment and the revolutionary nature of the Chinese pro- 
letariat constitute the basis of the work which the lead- 
ers of the Third International consider possible in 
China. From the point of view of the methods and 
tactics of Communism, the situation in China presents 
conditions that are almost ideal. China is a country 
of tremendous potential resources. The vast bulk of 
her population is agitated by various kinds of resent- 
ment, swept by different kinds of discontent. There is 
a small minority of the population, very active, very 
determined, very ambitious. If this minority could be 
won over to try an experiment in Communism in an 
attempt to further its own aims the Third Interna- 
tional would have just what it desires in China — a 
Soviet Government, organized and run by a determined 
minority, with the masses of the population induced to 
unprotesting acquiescence by the methods of dema- 
goguery, of which the Communist leaders are such past 
masters. 

In other countries of the Far East preparations for 



92 RUSSIA IN THE FAR EAST 

a revolution are being made similar in kind to those 
in China, except that there the diplomatic activities of 
the Soviet Government are not available as an adjunct 
of the propaganda work of the Third International. 
But everywhere the scheme is the same. A determined 
minority is called into being, organized and prepared 
for the eventualities which the Third International 
foresees as possible. I 

Looking at the situation in these countries, again 
through the eyes of the reports presented to the con- 
gress of the Third International, we find that in the 
Dutch Indies, for example, the Socialist propaganda, 
which has been going on for the last five years, is now 
rapidly growing in intensity and gaining in the influence 
it exerts by being directed primarily against foreign cap- 
ital. In Java, where of its thirty million population 
three millions are proletarians, the mass movement of 
the latter began as far back as 1912. But in the course 
of the past three years this movement has been rapidly 
gathering momentum as far as its revolutionary inten- 
sity is concerned. Special attention is being given to 
the organization of railroad workmen. Out of the forty 
thousand railroad workmen on the island, ten thousand 
have already been organized. Though the revolutionary 
Socialist party numbers only sixteen hundred members. 



THE THIRD INTERNATIONAL IN ASIA 93 

of whom fifteen hundred are natives, it is a very com- 
pact and very active body. In Korea a revolutionary 
movement of a purely political nature began in 1914, 
and included in its ranks at the beginning only the 
nobility and the richer elements. But now the revo- 
lutionary tendencies have begun to penetrate into the 
masses of the people. For the past year and a half this 
latter phase of the movement has been developing quite 
satisfactorily from the point of view of Communism. 

In India the situation appears to be almost least 
promising of all. Judging by the report of the Hindu 
delegate to the congress of the Third International, 
Roy, though a movement of a political and nationalist 
character began in India in the eighties of the past cen- 
tury, this movement has been centered almost exclu- 
sively among the students and the middle classes, find- 
ing very small response in the masses of the people. 
The latter are interested exclusively in problems of 
narrowly economic character. The agrarian question 
plays a very important role and is characterized by the 
existence of large landed estates, the shortage of land 
among the great masses of the population and the fact 
that the exports of foodstuffs from India are too great 
in proportion to the agricultural production of the coun- 
try. Because of the last circumstance, very largely, 



A 



94 RUSSIA IN THE FAR EAST 

there are frequent famines in India. The industrial 
proletariat is very small numerically, and is very poorly 
organized. There is as yet no Communist party, al- 11 
though there exists a movement for the creation of one. ' 
However, this movement makes every effort to isolate 
itself from the movement for national independence, 
looking upon the latter as bourgeois in character. In 
this the Communist leaders in India present a rather 
marked opposition to the general policies of the Third 
International in the East. Their attitude on this quesr 
tion constitutes a rather important problem for Mos- 
C0V7, since it weakens considerably the position of the 
Third International in India. 

However, the situation in India, though it would be 
affected profoundly by any events that may take place in 
China, is not expected to be directly affected by the 
conditions there. In 1920 the situation in India was 
expected to be affected from the Communist storm cen- 
ter in the Near East, which was then rapidly being 
built up in Afghanistan. 

In their work of organizing this storm center in 
the Near East, the Third International and the Russian 
Soviet Government followed the same methods as those 
they pursued in the Far East. Propaganda was carried 
on actively, and wherever possible diplomatic alliances 



THE THIRD INTERNATIONAL IN ASIA 95 

were attempted. A very important alliance of this kind 
was effected in Afghanistan. But to these two weapons 
of the Communist movement a third one was added here, 
which rendered the activities in the Near East far more 
formidable and important, at least for the time being, 
than those in the Far East. There the Coromunists 
found an opportunity for actually creating armed forces 
that would be directly under Moscow's control and 
orders. 

!Next to Zinoviev, the most prominent figure at the 
Baku Congress was the former Turkish general, Enver 
Pasha, who in the course of the past three years has 
gone through a most amazing transformation. From 
a trusty agent of the German Imperial Government and 
the military genius of the Turkish armed forces at the 
time when they were controlled from Berlin, Enver has 
become converted into a no less trusty agent of the Kus- 
sian Soviet Government, and was intrusted with a mili- 
tary mission of high importance. Driven out of Turkey 
by the eventualities of the war, Enver Pasha found 
refuge and warm welcome in Moscow. In the fall of 
1920 he was again in the Near East, charged with the 
execution of plans which were much more vast than 
anything he had ever dreamed of under the Sultans and 
their protectors in Berlin. 



96 RUSSIA IN THE FAR EAST 

Enver did not arrive in Baku in time to attend the 
congress. He reached Baku only a day or two before 
the congress ended, but he was received with all the 
pomp and enthusiasm accorded to the most prominent 
representatives there. He made his views known by 
addressing a large meeting held in his honor. Enver 
Pasha has now two ambitions in life. His first ambi- 
tion is an old one — to fight Great Britain and the 
British to the last ditch. To this ambition he was 
devoted all through the war, stimulated in his per- 
severance in it by the German gold that flowed so 
freely into the Turkish coffers. His second ambition 
is new — ^he is now fighting for the overthrow of the 
Sultan and his power. And in both of these ambitions 
Enver is strongly supported by the masters of Moscow. 

Enver Pasha left Moscow accompanied by a large 
gi'oup of military and civil specialists. His destina- 
tion was Afghanistan, and his route lay through the 
Caucasus; hence his presence in Baku at the time of 
the congress. The task intrusted to him consisted in 
organizing and coordinating the military efforts of the 
various movements in the 'Near East. 

Ever since the Soviet troops helped the natives of 
Afghanistan practically to free themselves from the 



I 

1 



THE THIRD INTERNATIONAL IN ASIA 97 

British control the little country in Central Asia became 
a special object of attention for the leaders in Moscow. 
From dependence upon the British, Afghanistan fell 
into a still greater dependence upon Soviet Russia. It 
is a sort of connecting link between the former Russian 
possessions in Central Asia which are still entirely con- 
trolled by Soviet Russia on the one hand and India and 
Persia on the other. It constitutes, therefore, an ex- 
cellent base for Communist operations in these two 
important outposts of the British interests. It is an 
ideal center from which to direct the struggle against 
the European — particularly the British — supremacy in 
the Near East. Moreover, ever since its falling under 
the virtual protectorate of Soviet Russia, Afghanistan 
has become a refuge for all kinds of malcontents in 
India, Persia, Turkey and other countries of the 
Orient. All these refugees constitute inflammable ma- 
terial for the revolution and an excellent foundation 
for a military force. 

The immediate purpose of Enver's mission in Af- 
ghanistan was the recruiting of these refugees, particu- 
larly those from India, for the Soviet armies. It was 
reported that he had been officially designated as chief 
of staff of the various revolutionary armies of the 



98 RUSSIA m THE. FAR EAST j 

Orient, and that there were under his command and 
direction considerable bodies of troops, whose equijt- 
ment and armament came from Soviet Russia. 

For several months, the agents of Communism car- 
ried on feverish activities in the Near East, no doubt, 
to some extent for political purposes, involved in their 
negotiations with Great Britain for trade relations and 
possible recognition. One of the British stipulations 
was a cessation of Communist propaganda in the coun- 
tries of the Near East. Partly for this reason and 
part-y for other reasons, which we shall take up in the 
next chapter, the Communist activities in the Near 
East slackened considerably in the spring of 1921, and 
the main emphasis of the Communist work in Asia was 
transferred definitely to the Far East. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE SOVIET STRATEGY IN THE FAE EAST 

On July 12, 1921, the Soviet radio service in Moscow 
announced to the world the fact that a revolutionary 
government had just heen formed in Mongolia. This 
simple announcement passed practically unnoticed by 
the world at large. And yet the event it described 
represented a most important achievement of the Com-^ 
munist work in Asia. Of itself, wind-swept and bar- 
ren, Mongolia, lost in the mountains of Asia, has no 
special significance. But it happens to have been the 
storm-center of some very acute problems in the Far 
East and is particularly important to-day, because it 
is the center of the Soviet strategy in the Ear East, 
which is unmistakably the most important phase now 
of all the Communist activities in the Orient. 

In 1920, the main emphasis of the Communist work 
in Asia was on the iN'ear East; in 1921, this emphasis 
became transferred to the Far East. 

This does not mean, of course, that the Soviets have 

abandoned their work in other parts of Asia or even 

99 



100 RUSSIA IN THE FAR EAST 

curtailed their activities there. On tJie contrary, in 
all their latest discussions of the world situation, their 
activities in the Orient loom even larger titan before. 
For example, in describing the world situation from 
the viewpoint of aggressive Communism, no less an 
authority than Trotsky * has stated that from now on 
the chief struggle against the "world imperialism'^ will 
be in the East, rather than in Western Europe as here- 
tofore. A writer in the official organ of the Soviet 
Government f in discussing the Soviet policy in the 
East, stated that this policy is based on the fact that 
"Soviet Russia and the East really complement each 
other." Soviet Russia, according to this writer, is a 
"support for the East" in the latter's struggle against 
the great European powers; while the East is the 
Soviet's "powerful ally in the struggle against the 
world imperialism." 

And if the Soviets now transfer the emphasis of 
their activities to the Far East, it is because, in the 
first place, they have very definite and pressing aims 
in that part of the world, and in the second place, be- 
cause they are rather disappointed with their work in 

the Central and Near East. 

■>., 

^ * Speech before the 3rd World Congress of the Third International, 
in July, 1921. 

t Moscow Issvestiya, July 17, 1921. 



SOVIET STRATEGY m THE FAR EAST 101 

The Baku Conference last summer had for its object 
the organization of the work of anti-Allied, particularly 
anti-British, propaganda in the countries of Central 
Asia and of the IN'ear East. As we saw above,* the 
Soviets were not, however, satisfied with the work of 
propaganda alone. Their agents were laying the foun- 
dation for aggressive activities all through these por- 
tions of Asia. But by the time of the Third Congress 
of the International in July, 1921, it was already quite 
apparent that all these efforts had failed. 

It has been reported that the Soviet plans in Cen- 
tral Asia called for an armed expedition into India, 
calculated to arouse whatever revolutionary fires may 
be smouldering in that land. For this purpose a num- 
ber of measures were taken. Special detachments of 
reliable troops were being trained in Turkestan and 
recruiting efforts were made in Afghanistan. A school 
of propaganda instruction was organized in Samarkand, 
and by the summer of 1921, 916 Hindu and 500 Afghan 
instructors were graduated from it. A great deal of 
work was done for the organization of transportation 
and liaison service in Afghanistan. But when all these 
military preparations were already well under way, 
in fact, practically completed, it was suddenly discov- 

* See the preceding chapter. 



102 RUSSIA IN THE FAR EAST 

ered that the political situation in Afghanistan was 
most unfavorable for the carrying out of the original 
plans. The fires of nationalism there are reported as 
having subsided very considerably. In view of this, 
the ambitious expedition into India had to be post- 
poned indefinitely. 

Afghanistan was also to be used as a base for work 
in Persia and Turkey. But here, too, the results so 
far have not been altogether gratifying to the Soviets. 
The new Persian Government, established after the 
"revolutionary" outbreak of the bands of Persian Cosr 
sacks, was headed by Seid Zia as Prime Minister, who 
has behind him a long period of pro-English activities.* 
Two years ago he was an ardent supporter of an al- 
liance with Great Britain. It is true that after his 
elevation to power, he refused definitely to sign any 
agreement with the British and has demanded an 
evacuation of Persia by the British troops, still his 
rule causes considerable uneasiness to the Soviets. 

The new Persian Government rests particularly on 
the support of the bourgeois class, i.e._, principally the 
trading elements, who are anti-British for purely com- 
mercial reasons. The whole coup d'etat was directed 
against the landed aristocracy, for one of the first acts 

♦ Moscow Izveatiydj May 21, 1921. 



SOVIET STRATEGY IN THE FAR EAST 103 

of Seid Zia was the nationalization of the large estates, 
the division of state lands among the peasantry, and 
the arrest of practically the whole aristocracy of Te- 
heran, the capital of Persia. It is interesting that 
among those arrested were the Shah's uncle and a well- 
known pro-British leader, Ferman, a close personal 
friend of Lord Curzon. According to the Soviet re- 
ports from Persia, the Shah asked Seid Zia for the 
release of his uncle, while Lord Curzon similarly asked 
for the release of his friend; but both requests were 
refused. 

At the present time, the Soviet Government is doing 
everything in its power to keep the new Persian Gov- 
^ ernment under its influence. It has concluded a treaty 
with it, which was signed in Moscow. Moreover, as 
a sort of token of good will, it has formally handed over 
to it the Bank of Persia, formerly owned by the Rus- 
sian Government. It is doing everything in its power 
to promote trade relations with Persia. But with all 
that, it is rather uneasy about the "revolutionary'' 
Government, especially about its present head. Once 
so easy a convert from a pro-British to a violently anti- 
British orientation, Seid Zia may perform the somer- 
sault over again, only reversing the direction. It has 
been intimated that the radical groups in Persia have 



104 RUSSIA IN THE FAR EAST 

promised Lis Government support just so long as it 
remains anti-British. 

Witli the situation in Turkey, i. e., principally in 
Anatolia, the seat of the "^Nationalist Government" 
and the headquarters of Mustapha Kemal, the Soviets 
are thoroughly disgusted. They knew all the time 
and admitted it readily enough that the Kemal move- 
ment is far from being Communistic in its aims or 
purposes. However, to the extent to which it was vio- 
lently anti-European, particularly anti-British, it en- 
joyed the good graces and the support of the Soviets. 
But it now appears that the estimates of the -"revolu- 
tionary" value of the Anatolia movement have been 
very grossly exaggerated. Writers in the official Soviet 
press seem to stand aghast before some of Kemal's ac- 
tivities. For example, in discussing the budget of the 
"^Nationalist Government" they point out the fact that 
huge sums of money are spent for the maintenance of 
the Sultan's Government and household,* and they 
must be wondering what part of the subsidies that the 
Anatolian "nationalists" had obtained from Moscow 
at one time or another had been used for this worthy 
purpose. 

All through this time the Soviets were rather quiea- 

♦ Moscow Izvestiya, July 13, 1921. 



SOVIET STRATEGY IN THE FAR EAST 105 

cent in tlie Far East. Propaganda, of course, was car- 
ried on, especially in China and Korea, but, generally 
speaking, the policy of the Soviets there was one of 
"watchful waiting." As the People's Commissar of 
!N'ational Minorities recently explained it, the Soviets 
did not feel that they had enough forces, particularly 
from the point of view of Communist leadership, to do 
active work at both ends of the vast Asiatic continent. 

Until the spring of 1921, the situation in the Rus- 
sian Far East remained very much the same as it 
finally crystallized during the months following the 
defeat of Admiral Kolchak's armies and the overthrow 
of the Omsk Government. The power of Moscow of- 
ficially extended only to Lake Baikal. All the terri- 
tory east of that, stretching clear to the Pacific Ocean, 
was the Far Eastern Republic, or the "buffer" state, 
as it is usually termed. 

In the spring of 1921, the Soviet Government began 
to show very considerable interest in the affairs of the 
Far East. The first notable indication of this in- 
creased interest came in the form of a formal cession 
by the IN'ational Assembly of the Far Eastern Republic 
to Soviet Russia of the peninsula of Kamchatka. This 
act was, no doubt, dictated by a number of considera- 
tions, the most important of which seems to lie in the 



106 KUSSIA IN THE FAE EAST 

fact that the Moscow leaders suddenly discovered that 
by recognizing the independence of the Far Eastern 
Eepublic they had officially rendered Eussia no longer 
a power on the Pacific Ocean. As such, Soviet Eussia 
would have no claim whatever to participation in any 
discussions dealing with the Pacific problems. The 
cession of Kamchatka was one of the ways of repairing 
this situation so far as the possible Soviet claims were 
concerned. Moreover, the re-acquisition of Kamchatka 
was important to the Soviets in view of their notion, 
frankly expressed by Lenin and other responsible lead- 
ers, that by granting concessions in Kamchatka to the 
Vanderlip group and to other American capitalists 
they would be able to embroil the United States in a 
war with Japan. 

The Kamchatka incident was followed by a rather 
important development in the Maritime or Primorsk 
Province of the Far Eastern Eepublic, which stretches 
for thousands of miles along the coast. This develop- 
ment consisted of a revolt against the authority of the 
Far Eastern Eepublic in the city of Vladivostok, 
which was successful and spread to several other im- 
portant towns. On May 26, 1921, a new government 
was established there, consisting of non-Socialistic 
elements. 



SOVIET STRATEGY IN THE FAR EAST 107 

What part the Japanese played in this revolt it is 
very difficult to determine with any degree of precision. 
Both the Soviet Government in Moscow and the Gov- 
ernment of the Far Eastern Republic, of course, lay 
the blame on the Japanese. On May 30, I. L. Yurin, 
the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Far Eastern 
Republic, sent a note to Tokyo, demanding the imme- 
diate cessation of all Japanese interference with the 
affairs of the Russian Far East.* He asked the Japa- 
nese whether or not they want friendly relations with 
the Far Eastern Republic and the consummation of 
a trade agreement with it, and if so why Japan does 
not withdraw her troops from the Siberian territory 
and give the Government of the Far Eastern Republic 
a free hand in dealing with the situation. Specifically, 
he demanded an open and definite declaration of the 
Japanese Government and of the Japanese Command 
in Siberia on their attitude with regard to the new 
Vladivostok Government, headed by Merkulov; the 
return of arms to the militia of popular defense (troops 
of the Far Eastern Government) which had been dis- 
armed by the Japanese; and no interference on the 
part of the Japanese with any action that the emis- 



• The text of this Note was published in the Moscow Izveatvya, 
June 9, 1921. 



108 KUSSIA IN" THE FAE EAST 

saries of the Far Eastern Government may take for 
the purpose of putting down Merkulov's revolt and pun- 
ishing its leaders. 

At the same time, George Chicherin, the Commissar 
of Foreign Affairs in the Moscow Government, sent a 
wireless note on the Far Eastern situation to the Gov- 
ernments of Great Britain, France, and Italy. In this 
note,* Chicherin cited a number of actions of the Japa- 
nese Government, interpreted as inimical by the Soviets. 
The most important of these actions consisted of alleged 
usurpation of Kussian fishing rights in Kamchatka by 
the Japanese authorities and their allotment to Japa- 
nese subjects, rather than to Kussian citizens, and of 
the rendering of assistance by the Japanese to various 
Eussian anti-Soviet groups in the Far East, notably 
those of Ataman Semenov and Baron Ungern in Mon- 
golia and the remnants of the Kappel troops, which 
were instrumental in bringing about the Vladivostok 
overthrow. In this connection Chicherin issued the 
following warning to Japan: 

"The Soviet Government, expressing the will of the 
Russian masses, warns the Japanese Government that the 
masses of the Russian people, having taken their fate into 
their own hands and having repelled all attacks of their 
enemies, will be able to conduct victoriously this new 

* For complete text of this Note see Appendix I. 



SOVIET STRATEGY IN THE FAR EAST 109 

struggle and will make those who have attacked them feel 
their strength." 

But the Soviet Government was not satisfied with 
merely issuing this warning to Japan. It sought at 
the same time to fasten the blame for the events in the 
Far East upon the Allied powers generally; for this 
reason the Chicherin note was addressed to the three 
great European powers. The Moscow Commissar 
stated that the Soviet Government considers these 
powers ^ ^morally responsible for this new link in the 
chain of intervention." This statemen(t he an- 
nounced as applying particularly to Great Britain, 
which he accused of hostile acts with respect to the 
Soviet Government, ^'entirely out of keeping with the 
Anglo-Eussian agreement." The note ended with the 
following significant words, which state with all clarity 
the vassal position of the Far Eastern Kepublic with 
respect to the Moscow Government : 

"The Russian Government protests most energetically 
against these acts directed against Soviet Russia as such 
or through the Far Eastern Republic which is friendly with 
her, as an intermediary step." 

However, about the time that the Yurin note went 
to Tokyo and the Chicherin note was put on the Soviet 
radio, the Far Eastern Republic Embassy in Moscow 



110 EUSSIA IlSr THE FAE EAST 

issued an official statement, summarizing the situation 
for the period ending June 1.* In this statement it was 
announced that although the authority in the Primorsk 
Province is in the hands of the Merkulov Government, 
the attitude of the Japanese towards this group is nega- 
tive, since it not only refuses to furnish it with arms, 
but even avoids all contact with it. According to the 
statement, the Merkulov forces consist of 600 bayonets 
in Vladivostok and of 345 bayonets in iN'ikolsk- 
Ussuriysk. Moreover, the. statement announced that a 
conference took place between Comrade Tseitlin, the 
representative of the Far Eastern Republic, and the 
Japanese representatives, in the course of which the 
latter declared that the events in the Primorsk Prov- 
ince will have no influence upon the relations between 
Japan and the Far Eastern Republic and were disposed 
to blame the Military Command for what had actually 
taken place. 

But the events in Vladivostok and the Primorsk 
Province generally were by no means the most im- 
portant feature of the Far Eastern situation. Of far 
greater significance were the events that took place 
in Mongolia during the spring and summer of 1921. 

As we have already seen, the general political im- 

* Published in Moscow Izvestiya, June 9, 1921. 



SOVIET STRATEGY IN THE FAR EAST 111 

portance of Mongolia lies in the fact that its geo- 
graphical position makes of it a barrier between Siberia 
and China proper. Its immediate political importance 
last summer lay in the fact that it had become the 
refuge for the remnants of anti-Bolshevist forces that 
had operated in Siberia against the Bolsheviki, princi- 
pally under Ataman Semenov. In the spring of 1921, 
one of the more energetic of Semenov's officers, Baron 
Ungem, made his way into Mongolia with small de- 
tachments of troops and entered into an agreement 
with the Living Buddha^ the ruler of Mongolia, to free 
the country of the Chinese, who had occupied it some 
time previously, in violation of the officially recognized 
autonomy of Mongolia. With the aid of the Mongolian 
troops, Ungem drove out the Chinese division which 
constituted the army of occupation, and arrived at 
Urga, the capital of Mongolia, where he entered into 
a more definite arrangement with the Living Buddha. 
Ungern became a Mongolian subject and was given 
a very high position; according to one report, he was 
made Minister of War and was given complete au- 
thority to recruit an army for the purpose of recover- 
ing from China the portion of Mongolia known as 
Inner Mongolia.* The Peking Government instructed 

♦ Vladivostok Daily News, June 24, 1921. 



112 RUSSIA m THE FAR EAST 

the Inspector-General of Chinese forces in Northern 
Manchuria, Chan-Tso-Lin, to send troops into Mon- 
golia. But these instructions were not carried out, the 
current explanation being that the Inspector-General, 
who has great ambitions for the acquisition of power 
in the internal affairs of China, was not willing to 
weaken his forces by an expedition into Mongolia, 
especially since the Ungem activities represented no 
direct menace to him. 

The Soviet explanation of the whole affair, however, 
is different. In spite of an official denial of the Japa- 
nese Government of any connection with the Ungem 
affair, the Soviet explanation makes the whole incident 
the result of Japanese intrigue and part of the general 
Japanese plans. An editorial article in the Moscow 
Izvestiya of June 7, signed by U. Steklov, the respon- 
sible editor of the paper, described these plans as con- 
sisting primarily of two parts. The first is the creation 
of a base of operations against Soviet Russia in the 
southern part of the Primorsk Province, i. e.j in Vladi- 
vostok and ISTikolsk-Ussuriysk. The second is the 
creation of a similar base in Mongolia, which would 
make it possible for the Japanese to invade Siberia in 
the direction of Lake Baikal and cut off the Far 
Eastern Republic from the Soviet territory proper. 



SOVIET STRATEGY IN THE FAR EAST 113 

A more detailed version of the Soviet explanation, 
more specially with reference to Mongolia, is found in 
an article by Vilensky, which was published in 
the Moscow Izvestiya of July 13. According to Yi- 
lensky, Baron Ungern, in his operations in Mongolia, 
was simply carrying out the plans of the Japanese. 
He says that Japanese agents had been working in 
Mongolia for a long time and had succeeded in bribing 
the Living Buddha and most of his dignitaries, while 
at the same time, even before the final defeat of Ataman 
Semenov, who was notoriously supported by the Japa- 
nese, the Ungem groups were concentrating arms and 
munitions on the Mongolian border. He quoted Chi- 
nese newspapers as having reported contraband deliv- 
eries of rifles, ammunition, and even machine guns, 
concealed in bags of rice, to the palace of the Living 
Buddha. 

The reason why Marshal Chan-Tso-Lin made no ef- 
fort to move against Mongolia, according to Vilensky, 
was that he is pro-Japanese and represents the groups 
of Chinese reactionaries who are banking on Japanese 
assistance for the furtherance of their political ambi- 
tions in internal politics. Japan's interest in Mon- 
golia he explained on the basis of her plans of imperial- 
istic control of Eastern Asia, which, says Vilensky, 



114 EUSSIA m THE FAE EAST 

call for the creation of a living barrier between China 
and Soviet Eussia along the line Manchuria-Mongolia, 
both under Japanese control. 

The policy of the Far Eastern Kepublic with regard 
to this situation was described in the Steklov editorial. 
In its military phases, it was to consist of energetic 
efforts to crush oppositionary armed bands, while polit- 
ically it was to be a "struggle against the monarchists 
of iN'orthern China and the reactionaries of Mongolia 
by a close contact with the working masses of China 
and Mongolia.'^ Steklov particularly emphasized the 
fact that the various activities of the Far Eastern Re- 
public along these lines should be carefully coordinated 
with the revolutionary activities of the Chinese and 
Mongolian masses. And a month later, Yilensky re- 
ported the formation of a "popular-revolutionary party 
in Mongolia organized to fight for self-determination." 
It can be very easily surmised that the appearance of 
this party was a direct result of the policy of "coordina- 
tion of activities." 

There was a special reason, too, for the formation of 
such a party. The Soviet technique of promoting revo- 
lutions in territories bordering on Russia consists of 
bringing into life in such a territory a Communist 



SOVIET STRATEGY IN THE FAR EAST 115 

group, however small and insignificant; of inducing 
such a group to proclaim itself the provisional revolu- 
tionary government of the territory in question and to 
appeal to Moscow for military assistance, which would 
be immediately furnished. This was the program 
gone through in the Caucasus and elsewhere. And this 
was precisely the plan worked out for Mongolia. 

The Soviets made an attempt to do this sort of thing 
in November, 1920. The following note, sent by the 
Peking Government to the Chinese ambassador in Lon- 
don and handed by the latter to Krassin on December 
31, 1920, tells the story of this first attempt of the 
Soviet Government to send its troops into China : 

"In his telegram of November 10, the Russian Commissar 
of Foreign Affairs stated that the Soviet Government, upon 
the request of the Chinese authorities in Urga, ordered the 
Siberian Command to dispatch troops to Mongolia in order 
to assist in the liquidation of the Semenov bands, whereupon 
those troops were to return to the Russian Soviet territory. 
On November 27, another telegram stated that, since the 
Chinese troops had already driven out the Semenov bands, 
the Soviet Government did not intend any longer to send 
troops there; however, should the followers of Semenov be 
found again within the boundaries of Mongolia, and should 
the Chinese authorities apply to Russia for assistance, such 
assistance will be given. 

"We consider it necessary to state that the crossing of the 
frontiers of one country by the troops of another violates the 
sovereignty of that country, and that the statement in the 
first telegram to the effect that we asked for assistance is not 



116 EUSSIA m THE FAR EAST 

true. Though the dispatching of troops did not actually take 
place, there still remains the offer of military assistance, 
which we should not accept." * 

Five months after this incident, however, the Red 
troops actually crossed the Chinese frontier. Again 
the reason given for this was a request for assistance on 
the part of Chinese authorities, which would seem rather 
doubtful in view of the above-quoted note. The os- 
tensible objective of the expedition was an attack upon 
some detachments of anti-Soviet forces in Eastern Si- 
beria which had fled to China and had been interned 
by the Chinese in the district of Chuguchak. These 
troops were commanded by General Bakich and were 
joined in May by remnants of the detachments under 
the command of Gnoyev, which were until then still 
operating in the Semipalatinsk district of Siberia. 

On May 24, the Red troops attacked the Bakich 
forces and surrounded the city of Chuguchak. Forced 
to retreat, Bakich turned in the direction of Mongolia 
and was reported in June as attempting to effect a 
juncture with the forces of Baron Ungem, operating 
on the Mongolian territory — with the Red troops in 
pursuit, f 

* The Russian text of this note was published in Moscow Izveatiya, 
January 5, 1921. 
t Moscow Izvestiya, June 11, 1921. 



SOVIET STRATEGY IN THE FAR EAST 117 

All this cleared the way for an effective Soviet expe- 
dition to Mongolia and furnished the first impetus to 
such an expedition. The "popular-revolutionary party" 
proclaimed itself Government and attempted to capture 
the capital of Mongolia, TJrga. It already had an 
army, organized and equipped on Russian territory.* 
At its request, the Red troops in the Baikal region im- 
mediately concentrated all their attention on Mongolia. 
The troops commanded hy Ungem v^ere defeated and 
were forced to retreat into the Eastern steppes. And 
soon after that, the Soviets staged the most farcical 
feature of the whole Mongolian incident. 

At the end of July the Mongolian People's Revolu- 
tionary Government addressed an official appeal to the 
Moscow Government, in which it requested the latter 
"not to withdraw the Soviet troops from the territory 
of Mongolia," until there can be effected a "complete 
removal of the menace from the common enemy." The 
appeal explained that the Mongolian's People's Revolu- 
tionary Government had not as yet succeeded in organ- 
izing and perfecting its apparatus of governmental 
authority and need the aid of the Red troops for the 
purpose of maintaining the security of the Mongolian 

♦ Moscow IisvesUm, November 6, 1921. 



118 RUSSIA IN THE FAR EAST 

territory and of the frontiers of the Eussian Socialist 
Federated Soviet Eepublie. * 

The Moscow Government immediately and most gra- 
ciously acceded to this request. Through the repre- 
sentative of the Commissariat of Foreign Affairs at 
Irkutsk, Chicherin transmitted to the Revolutionary 
Government of Mongolia a pompous note^ which began 
as follows: 

"The Russian Soviet Government, in alliance with the 
Government of the Far Eastern Republic, ordered its 
troops, operating side by side with the revolutionary army 
of the Provisional Government of Mongolia, to deal a crush- 
ing blow to the common enemy, the Tsarist General Ungern, 
who has subjected the Mongolian people to unprecedented 
enslavement and oppression; violated the rights of autono- 
mous Mongolia; at the same time threatening the security 
of Soviet Russia, and the inviolability of the territory of the 
fraternal Far Eastern Republic." 

This is the explanation Chicherin offers for the ap- 
pearance, in the first place, of the Soviet troops on the 
territory of Mongolia. The Russian Soviet Govern- 
ment "notes with great satisfaction" the appeal ad- 
dressed to it by the Mongolian Provisional Revolution- 
ary Government "that the Soviet troops should not 
be removed from the territory of Mongolia." The 
Soviet Government considers this appeal a manifesta- 
tion of "close and friendly bonds" that now unite 

♦ For fuU text of this note see Appendix II. 



SOVIET STRATEGY IN THE FAR EAST 119 

the people of Russia with the people of Mongolia. It 
announces its firm decision to withdraw the Red troops 
just as soon "as the menace to the free development of 
the Mongolian people and to the security of the Russian 
Repuhlic and of the Far Eastern Republic shall have 
been removed." But the Russian Government is in 
complete agreement with the Revolutionary Govern- 
ment of Mongolia on the fact that the moment when 
such withdrawal of its troops may be possible "has not 
yet arrived." And for this reason, the Soviet Govern- 
ment has decided to accede to the request of the Revo- 
lutionary Government of Mongolia and order its troops 
to remain on the territory of Mongolia.* 

Several days after the dispatching of this note, the 
Soviet press reported new successes of the Red troops 
operating in Mongolia. It was stated that after the 
capture of Urga by the Red troops, IJngem retreated 
east and was pursued for over 100 versts, where he was 
finally defeated by the pursuers. A large number of 
prisoners was taken, including many of Ungem's im- 
mediate assistants. Baron Ungem himself was captured 
soon after that, and on September 10 the Moscow wire- 
less announced his execution together with sixty-one of 
his officers. 
• For full text of thia note see Appendix II. 



120 EUSSIA IN THE FAK EAST 

The Hongolian incident, however, is far from being 
closed. Nevertheless, its culmination is, undoubtedly, 
a brilliant victory for the Soviet'policy in the Far East. 
Another state with a definite Moscow orientation has 
been created, and the territory controlled by the Third 
International has been pushed to the very boundaries of 
China proper. 

There is one more phase of the Soviet Far Eastern 
strategy that deserves attention in this connection. The 
Chicherin note of protest against the Japanese activities 
in the Far East was addressed to the Governments of 
Great Britain, France, and Italy, and against these 
countries the accusation of support of the Japanese was 
directed. The United States was omitted from the list 
of the accused powers and, apparently, by implication 
exonerated from the accusation. This was not, by any 
means, an oversight or an accident on the part of the 
Soviet diplomacy. It was entirely in keeping with the 
whole Soviet view of the American position in the Far 
East. 

The Soviets are frankly banking on a possibility of a 
war between the United States and Japan. Whatever 
the outcome of such a war, the Soviet leaders believe 
that the war would exhaust both sides and, possibly, 
lead to a social revolution in both, and even if the revo- 



SOVIET STRATEGY IN THE FAR EAST 121 

lution should not take place, both sides would be weak- 
ened very greatly by the eifort. This is particularly 
important for the Soviets in the case of Japan, as in 
that manner their only strong adversary in the Far 
East would be eliminated. Thus, whatever the outcome 
of an armed encounter between the United States and 
Japan, the Soviet leaders feel that they would be the 
only and the real winners. And they are ready to spare 
no efforts for the consummation of this end. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE SOVIET FAR EASTERN CONFERENCE 

The sovietization of Mongolia was not only a distinct 
triumph for the Soviet strategy in the Far East, but it 
opened before the Moscow leaders rather alluring and 
timely possibilities in connection with the Washington 
Conference on the Limitation of Armaments. The 
Soviet Government never had any illusions as to the 
possibility of its being asked to send representatives to 
the Conference in Washington. Its July note of pro- 
test against not being invited was merely a matter of 
form and of rhetorical exercise for the facile and elo- 
quent Soviet Commissar of Foreign Affairs. For a 
time, the Soviet Government rather hoped that the 
representatives of the Far Eastern Republic might bo 
invited to attend the Washington parley. Then the 
Moscow Government would be able to speak through 
them, in the same way in which it had thus conducted 
indirect negotiations with China and Japan. The 

agent of the Far Eastern Republic in Peking even 

122 



SOVIET FAE EASTERN CONPEEENCE 123 

applied for an invitation to Washington, but the posi- 
tion taken by the Government of the United States, 
which issued the invitations, was one of inalterable 
opposition to this. 

It so happens that this is not the first time that the 
Soviet Government fails to receive an invitation to a 
world parley. When the Peace Conference was in 
progress and the Moscow Government found itself un- 
invited to it, it immediately organized a world congress 
of Communist groups and hastened to organize them 
into the Third International, which it pronounced as 
an "antidote'' to the League of JSTations. This Interna- 
tional has proven to be a most valuable instrument in 
the hands of the Soviet Government. It is brought into 
play whenever the Soviet Government wishes something 
done for which it can, if necessary, disclaim responsi- 
bility. So the Third International is now being pushed 
forward in the Far East for the purpose of organizing 
a Soviet Far Eastern Conference in competition with 
the Washington Conference, in so far as it deals pri- 
marily with the problems of the Far East. 

The question of a possible Far Eastern conference 
to be called by Moscow was first raised in the Soviet 
press by V". Vilensky. In an article, published in the 
official organ of the Executive Coiomittee of Soviets, 



124 RUSSIA m THE FAR EAST 

i.e., the political organ of the Government,* he urged 
the need of such a conference, to oppose the Washington 
Conference. According to his analysis of the situation, 
the four great powers to be represented in Washington 
— the United States, Great Britain, Japan and France 
— are primarily interested in a division of their control 
over the Pacific ocean and the territories lying on the 
Pacific. The Washington Conference is bound to be- 
come a conflict of "the contradictions which exist 
among these four pretenders to hegemony in the 
Pacific." 

Whatever compromises or decisions may be reached 
at the Washington Conference are bound, according to 
Vilensky, to be at the expense of the interests of the 
peoples which inhabit the Far East, viz., China, Mon- 
golia, the Far Eastern Kepublic, and Soviet Russia. 
Consequently, a counter-conference of these four na- 
tions is not only desirable but essential from the point 
of view of safeguarding the interests of these nations. 

The next step in the development of this idea was a 
discussion of the question, taken up where Vilensky left 
it off, in the leading article in the official economic organ 
of the Soviet Government, f This article approached 



• Moscow Jzvestiya, August 2, 1921. 

t Moscow Ekonomicheskaya Zhian, August 10, 1921, 



SOVIET FAR EASTERN" CONFERENCE 125 

the question entirely from the economic viewpoint. Its 
thesis was that "if the peoples of the Far East are to 
be able to offer sufficient resistance to imperialistic 
aggression, no matter whence it comes, it is necessary 
for them to determine and unify their own interests." 
This unification of interests has to proceed along two 
lines, the external and the internal. 

The external unity of interests lies in a coordination 
of the forces of these nations for defense against direct 
imperialistic aggression. But this external unity can 
never be effective, unless it is based upon a mutuality 
of economic interests, which would act as a force of 
internal cohesion. 

There are three stages, maintains the author of the 
article, in the process of effecting such internal unity. 
The first is the establishment of close economic rela- 
tions between Soviet Russia and the Far Eastern Re- 
public. This is the easiest of the three stages, for what 
is called the Far Eastern Republic has been carved out 
of Russian territory, and, by the very nature of its 
development since the first days of its settlement by 
Russia, constitutes an integral part of the rest of Siberia 
and of the whole of Russia. The second stage is more 
difficult, consisting of a similar unification of the 
economic interests of Soviet Russia and the Far Eastern 



126 EUSSIA IN THE FAE EAST 

Bepublic on the one hand and of Mongolia on the 
other. 

This task — according to the Soviet analysis we are 
quoting — is facilitated by two circumstances. In the 
first place, Mongolia is more easily accessible to Russia 
than to any other country, including China herself, of 
which Mongolia was until recently a component part; 
and in the second place, the primitive character of the 
Mongolian market makes it possible for Russia, even 
in her present state of industrial collapse, to satisfy its 
needs, while Mongolia's exports, consisting of meat and 
hides, can easily be consumed by the Russian markets. 
Moreover, the recent events in Mongolia and the con- 
trol, which Soviet Russia now has over the country, 
renders quite possible very close relations between 
Soviet Russia, its Far Eastern vassal, and Mongolia. 
But there is also one disturbing factor, viz., the attitude 
on the part of China, of which we shall speak below. 

With regard to China, there is a number of important 
questions which require solution in any event, i.e., even 
apart from the possibility of a conference, and which 
would determine the inter-relations among her, Soviet 
Russia and the Far Eastern Republic. These are ques- 
tions of customs; trade routes, overland as well as by 
water ; the status of the Chinese Eastern Railroad, etc. 



SOVIET FAE EASTERN CONFERENCE 127 

The article we are quoting ended with the hopeful 
assertion that the solution of all these questions is not 
only possible, but inevitable, and that a Soviet Far 
Eastern Conference would be the best method of weld- 
ing the four territories enumerated into an economic 
unity. The conference would have to define their 
common aims, determine their common interests, and 
lay down the fundamentals of a plan of collaboration 
and of coordination of forces. 

In all this preliminary discussion of a possible Far 
Eastern Conference, the distinguishing feature was 
that it was to be a conference of nations, in which the 
representatives of the governments of the four coun- 
tries would gather around a conference table. But, 
apparently, something was going on behind the scenes 
of the Soviet diplomacy all this time, and before long 
the idea of the Far Eastern Conference reappeared in 
a new guise. 

The next step in the development of the idea was the 
publication of the Theses of the Executive Committee 
of the Third International on the Washington Confer- 
ence, in the official organ of the Russian Communist 
Party.* These theses give the view which the Third 



* Moscow Pravda, September 1, 1921. The Theses are signed by 
Carl Radek, Secretary of the Executive Committee. 



128 RUSSIA m THE FAE EAST 

International takes of the situation and tlie position 
which it intends to take with regard to the whole 
matter. 

The Washington Conference is defined in these theses 
as "an attempt on the part of the United States to take 
away from Japan by diplomatic means the fruits of 
the latter's victory," which consist of economic ad- 
vantages in China and Siberia. The Conference may 
result in a compromise, in which case Great Britain 
will side with the United States, and the two together 
will force Japan to give up the advantages which the 
United States seeks for herself. In that case, just as 
it happened when Russia, Great Britain and France 
forced Japan to give up the advantages she had wrested 
from China by the Simonoseki treaty, such an enforced 
compromise will be the basis for new international 
groupings and for new world conflicts. Or else, the 
Washington Conference may settle nothing, in which 
case the economic competition and the armament rivalry 
will go on at an even more rapid tempo than heretofore. 
But in either case, the fundamental contradictions 
which exist among the great capitalistic powers will 
remain uncomposed, and consequently, the Conference 
as such is doomed to failure. 

The concluding paragraphs of these theses are in the 



SOVIET FAR EASTERN CONFERENCE 129 

form of a warning, issued by the Executive Committee 
of the International "to the laboring masses and to the 
enslaved peoples of the colonies", that they should ex- 
pect no alleviation from the Washington Conference 
in the way of removing militaristic dangers. At the 
same time, the Executive Committee appealed to the 
Communist parties and labor organizations in all coun- 
tries "to increase their agitation and struggle against 
the imperialistic states," and to the masses of the popu- 
lation of Eastern Siberia, China, and Korea, "to unite 
more closely with Soviet Russia." 

For a whole month after that, the question of a 
Soviet Far Eastern Conference was not discussed in the 
Moscow press. Then V. Vilensky again took up the 
question,* and his discussion disclosed a very important 
and interesting fact. In that interval, the question of 
calling a counter-conference was settled by the Soviet 
leaders, and the decision was to have the Executive 
Committee of the Third International, rather than the 
Soviet Government, call this conference. It is to be a 
"congress of the toiling masses of Eastern Asia," not 
a conference of the representatives of governments. 

The reason for this decision does not appear 
clearly, but some of the events that have taken place 

• Moscow IzvesUua, September 30, 1921. 



130 EUSSIA IN THE FAE EAST 

in tlie Far East during the interval shed a very inter- 
esting light on what is going on behind the scenes of 
the Soviet diplomacy. For it was certainly not with- 
out a reason that the Soviet leaders gave up the idea of 
staging a regular diplomatic conference, with four 
nations represented, to offer to the world their own 
solution of the problems which stand out in such sharp 
relief at the present time. 

Ever since the creation of the Far Eastern Republic 
at Chita, the Soviet Government has been doing every- 
thing in its power to arrange for an official conference 
between the representatives of that Eepublic and Japan. 
That was really the primary purpose for which the 
Soviet leaders agreed in the first place to the creation 
of the "buffer" state, for they hoped to be able to use 
it as a channel for an understanding which it wanted 
with Japan. On the other hand, Japan quite obviously 
consented to the creation of this "buffer'' between her- 
self and Soviet Russia, because she expected to derive 
advantages out of the situation that would have thus 
come about. 

But at the same time, Japan continued her old policy 
of making no definite and clear-cut declarations of her 
position with regard to the Russian Far East. She 
continued to hold the coast and the island of Sakhalin 



SOVIET FAR EASTERN" CONFERENCE 131 

on the plea of defending her interests, and yet ostensibly 
preserved a state of neutrality with regard to the Far 
Eastern Eepuhlic itself. 

Finally, a conference took place early in September 
between the representatives of Chita and of Tokyo in 
the city of Dairen, in Manchuria. What took place at 
the Dairen Conference is not known. The Conference 
was interrupted about the middle of October, and then 
resumed in ^November. 

The questions of a trade agreement and of the 
evacuation of the Russian Far East were taken up 
seriously in Dairen, and the Japanese representatives 
showed themselves quite willing to settle both of these 
questions quite satisfactorily to the Chita Government. 
These two points appear obvious from Vilensky's dis- 
cussion. He took this apparent change of front on 
the part of the Japanese diplomats in conjunction with 
the Japanese negotiations with China regarding the 
Shantung question. And the point of his argument was 
that all this does not, necessarily, indicate a reversal 
of Japan's postwar policy with regard to the continental 
Far East. His explanation of Japan's motives ran 
as follows : 

"With the aid of all these 'conferences' and 'negotiations' 
Japan merely attempts, on the eve of the Washington Con- 



132 RUSSIA m THE FAE EAST 

ference, to safeguard her rear so far as the continent of Asia 
is concerned. The current task of the Japanese diplomacy- 
is to bind China or the Far Eastern Republic by means of 
some sort of agreements. The Hara Cabinet wants to be able 
to say that all the acute problems of the Far East have 
already been settled by Japan's direct negotiations with the 
Far Eastern Republic and with China." 

In accordance with this analysis, Vilensky forecast 
the following as the basic object of the congress of the 
toiling masses of Eastern Asia, that is being convoked 
by the Third International: 

"To disclose the schemes of the Japanese imperialism, 
which is the chief oppressor of the nations of the Far East, 
and to oppose to it the organized will of the toiling masses 
of Eastern Asia." 

The Dairen negotiations were not broken off, however, 
and the Soviet Government does not risk the calling 
of a diplomatic Ear Eastern conference. It is so much 
simpler to relegate the task to the Third International, 
to make the conference serve the agitation and propa- 
ganda purposes which, in any event, would have been 
the only possible outcome of any Soviet Far Eastern 
Conference, and then, if necessary, to disclaim all of- 
ficial responsibility for any criticism or decisions in 
which the conference might indulge. 

There is another reason why the Soviet diplomats are 
rather diffident about lauching a diplomatic counter- 
conference. The position of China, the participation of 



SOVIET FAE EASTERN CONFERENCE 133 

which in such a conference is vital, is far from being 
favorable to the Soviet plans. The Peking Government 
is not at all in sympathy with the efforts made in the 
course of the past months by Moscow to reach a friendly 
understanding with it. After the overthrow of the 
Anfu party and the accession to power of the present 
regime, the Soviet diplomats, as we saw above, had 
great hopes of reaching such an understanding with the 
new Government. Their calculations were based on 
the strongly anti-Japanese position of General Wu-Pei- 
Fu, whose antagonism to Japan they expected to turn 
into friendship for Soviet Russia. But their anticipa- 
tions in this regard failed of materialization almost 
completely, while Wu-Pei-Fu's own influence in Peking 
lasted but a very short time. The present Peking Gov- 
ernment is very cold to the Soviet advances. 

This coldness on the part'of Peking toward Moscow 
was not, of course, dispelled by the recent activities of 
the Soviets on the Chinese frontier; rather was it in- 
creased. Ever since the Chinese revolution furnished 
an opportunity for the Imperial Russian Government 
to establish its ascendency in Mongolia and elsewhere 
along the Chinese boundary, there have been constant 
difficulties between Peking and Petrograd regarding 
the status of these territories. The Mongolian question 



134 RUSSIA m THE FAR EAST 

was finally regulated by the tri-partite Kyakhta agree- 
ment in 1915,* but tbe question of tbe Urankbai Terri- 
tory, for example, was never settled even tentatively. 
Tbe establishment in Mongolia, in tbe summer of 1921, 
of a government tbat rests almost exclusively on tbe 
bayonets of tbe Russian Red troops can scarcely be con- 
sidered by tbe Peking Government as furthering its 
own aims. 

Tbe Kyakbta agreement made Mongolia an autono- 
mous state under China's suzerainty. Tbe Mongols 
were not satisfied with this agreement, for they de- 
manded complete independence. But such as it was, 
the agreement stood until 1919, when it was abrogated 
by China, and Mongolia was included in tbe territory 
of the Chinese Republic. This state of affairs lasted 
until the events which we described in the last chapter 
unfolded themselves, and the People's Revolutionary 
Government of Mongolia, established with the aid of 
tbe Russian Red troops, placed itself under tbe pro- 
tection of Soviet Russia. 

Peking's reply to this was expressed in new instruc- 
tions to Marshal Chan-Tso-Lin to march against Mon- 
golia. This time Chan-Tso-Lin decided to carry out tbe 
instructions, and began making preparations for tbe 

* For the important provisions of this agreement see Appendix II. 



SOVIET FAR EASTERN CONFERENCE 135 

expedition. But these preparations were halted when 
the Canton Government began its war against Peking. 
In the meantime the Soviets have done everything 
in their power to reach an understanding with China 
over the Mongolian question. All the means at its 
disposal have been utilized to this end. In a note, 
addressed on September 14, 1921, to the head of the 
People's Eevolutionarj Government of Mongolia, its 
Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bodo, George Chicherin, 
the Soviet Commissar of Foreign Affairs, said: 

"More than once has the Russian Government approached 
the Government of China, both directly and through the 
representatives of the Far Eastern Republic who were in 
communication with the latter, with offers to begin nego- 
tiations on these questions (relations between Mongolia and 
China)." 

All these efforts failed, however, and in September, 
1921, the Soviet Government decided to send a special 
mission to take up this question. In order to have a 
pretext for this mission, which was to go in the guise 
of a trade delegation, the Mongolian Ministry of 
Foreign Affairs was inspired from Moscow to request 
the Soviet Government to present to the Chinese Gov- 
ernment an offer of the new rulers of Mongolia to enter 
into negotiations with Peking. 

* For complete text of this note see Appendix II. 



136 EUSSIA IN THE FAE EAST 

In tlie meantime the Soviet troops had occupied not 
only Mongolia but also the Urankhai Territory. Here, 
again, the pretext was the need for the Soviet Govern- 
ment to defend its frontiers from "white guard bands" 
which were claimed to have found refuge in the moun- 
tains of Urankhai. And just as with Mongolia, the 
Soviet Commissar of Foreign Affairs dispatched an 
official note to the shepherds of Urankhai, assuring the 
"people of the Urankhai Territory" that the sole object 
of the occupation of their land by the Russian Red 
troops was to defend them from the "reactionary tsarist 
officers who had found refuge among them" and to 
protect the territory of Soviet Russia from these 
"bands." The note also contains assurances that the 
Soviet troops would be withdrawn as soon as these 
dangers would be removed.* 

Knowing only too well the Soviet technique of over- 
throwing governments in territories contiguous with 
Soviet Russia, the Peking Government has been watch- 
ing with considerable apprehension this massing of 
Russian Red troops in the vicinity of l^orthern China. 
Its leaders know that the possibility is not precluded 
that some group may appear there, subsidized and 



* The text of this note was published in the Moscow Izveatiya, 
September 17, 1921. 



SOVIET FAR EASTEEISr CONFEEENCE 137 

instructed from Moscow, declare itself a govemment 
and immediately apply to Soviet Russia* for military 
assistance. 

Under these conditions it is more tlian likely that 
the Peking Government would rather trust itself to 
the "imperialistic intrigue" of the Washington 'Con- 
ference than participate in a Soviet diplomatic confer- 
ence. And without China such a conference would be 
worthless, as the Soviet leaders themselves fully realize. 

But neither were the Soviet leaders willing to let such 
an opportunity of general international interest in the 
affairs of the Far East as presents itself in connection 
with the Washington Conference pass unutilized by 
them. The Congress of the Toiling Masses of Eastern 
Asia was the natural outcome of the situation that had 
thus unfolded itself in the Far East on the eve of the 
Washington Conference. 



CHAPTEK IX 



The story of tlie Eussian phase of the Far Eastern 
question, given in the preceding chapters, incomplete 
though it he, hrings out two important things. The 
first is that the interplay of a numher of factors opera- 
tive in the 'Course of the past quarter of a century has 
ohscured and rendered confusingly complex the hasic 
elements of Russia's position in the Far East. The 
second is that it is most important to distinguish in the 
situation between the fundamental structure of Russia's 
real national interests and the confusing superstructures 
of the highly questionable policies followed by the 
Russian Imperial regime during the years of its 
imperialistic aggression and by the Soviet regime in 
its present-day activities. Let us attempt to make such 
a differentiation. 

The elemental eastward movement of Russian colon- 
ization through the centuries, in the course of which 

Russia had made her way across the virgin stretches 

138 



NATIONAL INTERESTS IN FAR EAST 139 

of Siberia and finally came to rest on the shores of the 
Pacific, is the first and the most important element in 
the situation. To settle this vast territory and introduce 
into it modem civilization has been a truly stupendous 
task that required sturdy colonizing genius and colossal 
expenditures of effort, human life, and material wealth. 

The Russian settlers in Siberia came to an economic- 
ally virgin land that had very little native population. 
There were no organized states to conquer, no foreign 
nations to absorb. Russia came into these vast Asiatic 
stretches, bringing with her the arts of civilization, 
millions of her own population, and the resources of 
a powerful, organized state. She developed the coun- 
try and made of it an organic part of her own politico^ 
economic whole. This applies to the Far East with 
even greater justice than to the rest of Siberia, for the 
conditions that Russia encountered there were even 
more difficult to overcome than those with which she met 
in the western portions of the country. 

Toward the end of the nineteenth century the violent 
imperialism of the Russian Government intruded itself 
upon this process of peaceful colonization. Fed by 
inordinate ambitions and by questionable intrigue, this 
Russian imperialism proceeded to wrest for itself ad- 
vantages in places where such acquisitions could be of 



140 EUSSIA IN THE FAE EAST 

no possible good to tlie national interests of Eussia. 
The whole Manchurian episode of Russia's history, 
ending so ingloriouslj with the Eusso-Japanese War, 
involved no national interests and could not possibly 
have brought Eussia any permanent and necessary 
advantages. 

Of equally questionable value were the advantages 
which the Imperial Eussian Government wrested from 
China after the revolution took place there in 1911. 
There seems little doubt that the manner in which the 
Eussian Imperial Government handled the Mongolian 
situation was merely an echo of the methods it had 
employed on a larger scale in Korea and Manchuria 
ten years before. 

But if the Far Eastern imperialism of the Tsar's 
Government was entirely foreign to the national inter- 
ests of Eussia, the present-day activities of the Soviet 
regime in the Far East are even more foreign to these 
interests. Of what possible interest to the people of 
Eussia can be the question of the sort of government 
that exists in Mongolia, when this question presents no 
threat whatever to the honor or the prosperity of 
Eussia? Eussia is being frankly used by her Com- 
munist rulers as merely the base for a world revolution, 
and the foreign ventures of the Soviet Government and 



NATIONAL INTERESTS IN FAR EAST 141 

of the Third International cannot be regarded as having 
in view any national interests of Eussia. 

Moreover, the Soviets are doing on the territory of 
China precisely what they accuse Japan of doing on 
the territory of Siberia. They demand from the 
Japanese the evacuation of the Maritime Province, and 
at the same time occupy Mongolia, offering the same 
excuse that the Japanese had given for their acts and 
making the same sort of solemn promises of withdrawal. 
Anyone reading carefully the Chicherin notes on the 
Far Eastern Republic and on Mongolia, given in the 
Appendix, cannot but be struck by this similarity. 

So after all it is not so difficult to distinguish between 
Russia's national interests and the activities which have 
been and are carried on in her name by her Imperial 
or Soviet masters. In Russia's present situation these 
fundamental interests seem to be divided into two broad 
classes: those of territorial integrity, and those of na- 
tional sovereignty. Both of these two classes of inter- 
ests are involved m the Russian Far Eastern situation. 

The boundaries of the Russian empire were well 
defined. These boundaries remained defined as the 
frontiers of Russia when the Provisional Government 
was in existence. Since the overthrow of that govern- 
ment and the disappearance in Russia of any legal and 



142 EUSSIA IN THE FAR EAST 

recognized government, numerous attempts have been 
made to dismember Russia. Only a Russia restored to 
national statehood can deal authoritatively with the 
question of the preservation or non-preservation of the 
territorial integrity of what was formerly the Russian 
empire. Therefore the interests of Russia's national 
integrity demand that no power, friendly to Russia, 
should make attempts to enter into agreements with the 
governments which now exist unrecognized on any 
portion of the former Russian empire concerning per- 
manent disposition of any portion of this territory. 
Specifically, so far as the Far Eastern question is con- 
cerned, the interests of Russia's territorial integrity 
require that the great powers sanction or accept no 
permanent separation from Russia of any territory 
within the frontiers of the former Russian empire. 

The interests of national sovereignty are concerned 
with the rights which have accrued to Russia by virtue 
of the international agreements that had been made by 
her recognized governments. This means, first of all, 
the application to Russia of the principle of the sanctity 
of treaties. 

On September 23, 1920, the Chinese Government 
violated all the treaties which had existed between 
Russia and China. This act undoubtedly constituted 



NATIONAL INTERESTS IN FAE EAST 143 

a direct violation of the interests of Kussia's national 
sovereignty. The treaties which had existed between 
Russia and China may or may not have been inter- 
nationally just. They may or may not have been to 
the best interests of Russia. But whatever they were, 
they cannot be abrogated arbitrarily by one of the 
signatories. 

One of these agreements between Russia and China 
was concerned with the Russian control of the Chinese 
Eastern Railroad. Aside from the legal considerations 
involved in this question, the continuation of this con- 
trol constitutes a matter of great economic importance 
to Russia. 

The economic development of Siberia depends to a 
large extent upon the country's unhampered and con- 
venient exit to the sea. This exit is provided by the 
port of Vladivostok, and the Chinese Eastern Railroad, 
the construction of which cost Russia over 300,000,000 
roubles, has its vital importance in the fact that it pro- 
vides the only possible convenient and economical con- 
nection between the interior of Siberia and the port 
terminal. The railroad was originally conceived of as 
an economic necessity, and Count Witte in his Memoirs 
spoke of it as "designed exclusively for cultural and 
peaceful purposes," though "jingoist adventurers turned 



144 EUSSIA IN THE FAR EAST 

it into a means of political aggression." Even the 
Japanese recognized the economic need to Russia of this 
railroad, and the Portsmouth treaty specifically pro- 
vided for the continuation of Russia's economic use of 
the railroad, while precluding just as specifically any 
utilization of it for political purposes. 

But apart from these general interests which must 
enter properly within the category of Russia's "legiti- 
mate" interests, over which a "moral trusteeship" has 
heen proposed hy the Government of the United States, 
Russia's national interests in the Ear East require 
permanent peace there. The economic havoc wrought 
there, as well as elsewhere in the country, hy the Com- 
munist experiments, can he repaired only hy means of 
rapid and energetic development, and such development 
IS possible only if Russia succeeds in enlisting for it 
the aid of foreign capital, and if such capital can work 
in conditions of free and unhampered activity. 

There are two nations that can engage in such eco- 
nomic activity in the Russian Far East on a large 
enough scale to be commensurate with the needs of the 
situation. These two nations are the United States 
and Japan. And there is no doubt that restored Russia 
would be willing to open her door wide to both of them, 
if they came in the proper spirit. 



N^ATIONAL INTERESTS IN FAE EAST 145 

It is not only conceivable but, in the long run, in- 
evitable that Kussia and Japan should be friends. True, 
in order that this should take place, Japan would have 
to undergo something of a transformation. It would 
have to be a different Japan, just as it would be a 
different Eussia. It would have to be a Japan that 
will have learnt the lesson which Germany's experi- 
ence in the course of the past decade taught the world — 
a Japan that will realize that one hundred thousand 
bayonets cannot give her one hundred satisfied cus- 
tomers or friends. That such a Japan is possible there 
seems to be very little doubt. And with such a Japan, 
Kussia can, and, no doubt, will be friends. 

Freedom of economic opportunities in Siberia, which 
a restored Russia would undoubtedly offer to the world, 
would place Japan in a position of advantage which 
nothing short of specific restrictions against her can 
take away. Her geographical proximity, her knowl- 
edge of the local conditions and her ability to adapt 
herself to these peculiar conditions presented by Siberia, 
are bound to put her in the same position with regard 
to Asiatic Russia that Germany is certain to enjoy with 
regard to European Russia. 

But whatever scope Japan's economic activities may 
assume in Siberia, the greatest share in the development 



146 RUSSIA IN THE FAR EAST 

of that country would still go to the United States. 
The United States is the only country in the world to- 
day that possesses the necessary resources for financing 
the large phases of the constructive work which would 
have to proceed in Siberia in the near future on a truly 
gigantic scale. The similarity of the problems which 
Siberia faces today with the problems which America 
faced during the past fifty years in the development of 
her own West, coupled with the accumulation of 
capitalistic resources in America, which has come about 
as a result of the World War, renders the United States 
unmistakably the most important factor in the economic 
development of Siberia. And the traditional friend- 
ship which has existed between Russia and the United 
States for generations, and which was greatly accentu- 
ated by America's friendship for Russia since the 
revolution, make such an economic partnership between 
Russia and America a certainty. 



CHAPTER X 

Russia's role in a world balance of powers 

It is not only in their attitude toward each other as 
nation to nation, however, that^lies the importance of 
the relations between the United States and Russia. 
The world political situation of the present time places 
demands of vastly more far-reaching importance upon 
their possible accord and a harmony of their views on 
certain fundamental questions of policy and action. 
The role that each of them plays or is likely to play 
in the new political equilibrium of the world which is 
coming about as a result of the World War is a question 
to which scarcely any other is superior today in para- 
mount importance. 

At the time of the Peace Conference in Paris, a 
French diplomat was complaining on one occasion to 
an eminent Russian statesman of the difficulties en- 
countered by the Preliminary Conference of the Allied 
and Associated Powers, and of the lack of steadiness 

'of purpose that characterized so prominently that con- 

147 



148 RUSSIA IN THE FAE EAST 

clave of nations. The Russian statesman gave the 
following reply to his French colleague: 

"What would you expect? Russia is not represented at the 
Conference. In former European conferences, it was she, 
with her massive strength of two hundred millions of people, 
that supplied the steadying and stabilizing influence. Now 
there is nothing to take her place." 

The Russian statesman, watching the work of the 
Peace Conference, visualized it from the viewpoint of 
what he rightly interpreted as an irreparable disturb- 
ance of that European balance of powers, which existed 
so prominently before the war and which was shattered 
forever when the first shot of the war was fired. He 
himself had taken a very important part in the network 
of diplomatic intrigue which had created and main- 
tained that balance. The negative factor of Russians 
absence from the Paris Conference, which of itself 
rendered the reestablishment of the old balance im- 
possible, naturally loomed in his eyes as the outstanding 
feature of the situation. 

Yet there was another factor in the situation as it 
unfolded itself at the Paris Conference, and this factor 
was even more important, positively, than the absence 
of Russia was negatively. It was the presence of the 
United States, for the first time in history projecting 
herself into a world situation and placed by the circum- 



WORLD BALANCE OF POWERS 149 

stances attending that situation in a position of un- 
precedented dominance. 

There is no doubt that at the time of the Paris 
Conference, i. e., in the spring and the summer of 1919, 
this position of the United States was not, by any 
means, as clearly defined and as widely accepted as it 
is today. On the contrary, ostensibly the European 
diplomats of the old school, instinct with the psychology 
of a European balance of powers, were in control of the 
situation. 

But whether or not the leaders of the Peace Con- 
ference realized the new importance which America was 
destined by the war to play in the affairs of the world, 
the two years that have elapsed since that Conference 
have offered ample demonstration of America's new 
role. The alacrity and readiness with which the great 
powers consented to attend the new world confer- 
ence, proposed by the President of the United States, 
furnish the most convincing proof of this acceptance of 
America's leadership, while the almost complete absence 
of opposition to having the capital of the United States 
as the seat of the conference was the crowning manifes- 
tation of America's position. And it is most important 
to note that this supreme importance of the new role of 
the United States lies in the fact that it is America's 



150 EUSSIA m THE FAR EAST 

larger interests that now hold the center of the world 
stage and that the incidence of these interests, coupled, 
of course, with a number of other factors, constitutes 
the decisive influence in the determination of what and 
where that center is to be. 

The Paris Conference worked in an atmosphere which 
radiated from a tradition of Europe as the center of 
world affairs and the European balance of powers as 
the most important factor in the world situation. The 
Washington Conference meets in an atmosphere that 
radiates from a center of world affairs which has moved 
to the vast reaches of the Pacific ocean and a balance 
of powers that is truly world-wide in its scope, rather 
than essentially European. 

The war and the storm of acute social unrest which 
followed in its wake have left the continent of Europe 
a panting wreck. Europe's sources of basic raw mate- 
rials are less accessible than before — partly because of 
war's devastations, as in Northern France; partly be- 
cause of general disorganization, as in some of the newly 
created states; partly because of sporadic political con- 
troversies, as in Silesia or Western Germany. Its 
mechanical industrial equipment was almost everywhere 
impaired by the war. Its manpower deteriorated dur- 
ing the war and the war's aftermath from the point of 



WORLD BALANCE OF POWERS 151 

view of both physical strength and psychological attitude 
toward the processes of economic production. The 
spoliation and ruin of Russia by her Communist vivi- 
sectionists have left a breach in the continental economy 
of Europe that will not be repaired for a long time to 
come. Finally, the creation of a number of new states 
on the continent and the status in which the war left 
the two great continental states, France and Germany, 
render the internal political situation in Europe one of 
confusion and uncertainty. 

At the same time the war, by its very demands upon 
the economy of the whole world, expressed in the far- 
flung processes of its conduct, has crystallized the 
politico-economic status on a world scope of that part 
of the earth upon which at least one side in the conflict 
drew for its resources. The United States and the 
British Overseas Dominions were to a large extent the 
inexhaustible source of strength from which the Allies 
drew the possibility of victory. The war forced these 
countries into a new attitude toward the world problems. 
It left them in a politico-economic status that renders 
them the active bases of the world reconstruction after 
the ravages of the conflict. At the same time, the war 
increased the importance of the undeveloped countries 
of the East as the passive bases of such reconstruction. 



153 RUSSIA IN THE FAR EAST 

And all these countries have the Pacific ocean for their 
center of interests and the world comity that is now 
formulating itself ahont the problems of the Pacific 
as a nucleus for their principal concern.* 

Thus, the importance acquired by the Pacific in the 
affairs of the world is no longer due primarily to a 
menacing or even a significant awakening of the Orient 
— a "Yellow Peril/' with the specter of which the 
former German Emperor strove so hard to frighten the 
world. Rather is it due to a new projection of the 
Occident into the possibilities of development held by 
the Orient. This projection is not a new thing, of 
course. But the crystallization of the Occident's 
strength in the Orient has been rapid and spectacular 
in recent years through its emergence out of the World 
War. I^ot only has this process taken place under the 
conditions and in terms of a rapidly growing vital 
economic dependence of the war-wrecked Europe upon 
the war-developed basin of the Pacific ocean, but this 
basin has acquired its new world significance, because 
the Pacific has become, to a very important extent, the 
white man's sea^ — no longer solely as an object of 



* I am indebted for some of the ideas expressed here to an excellent 
series of articles on the general subject of "Europe's Decline," by 
Alexander Kerensky, former head of the Provisional Government of 
Russia, published in the Prague Volj/a RossU and translated in part 
in The Living Age. 



WORLD BALANCE OF POWERS 153 

exploitation, but as a place in which the white man 
makes his habitat and begins to build up great national 
states. To this kind of white man's appearance in the 
Pacific there is very strenuous opposition on the part 
of one Oriental power — Japan — which has adopted the 
European technique and is bent on using it for the 
establishment of its hegemony in some parts of the 
Orient, besides making quite a definite bid for a control 
of the Pacific. 

To the extent to which it deals primarily with the 
problems of the Pacific, the Washington Conference is 
confronted by this very complex and inherently unstable 
situation, in which the following are the principal 
national factors: 

1. Japan, which is for the present moment still 
dominated by ambitions, imperialistic elements that 
are striving to secure and maintain a hegemony in the 
East and a control of the Pacific, and at the same time 
confronted by such vital internal problems as the growth 
and the distribution of her population and a danger of 
economic exhaustion due to the staggering drain on her 
resources of her stupendous military and naval prep- 
arations. 

2. Great Britain, faced by disturbing internal diffi- 
culties due to the war's aftermath, and still more di&- 



154 RUSSIA m THE FAR EAST 

turbing symptoms exhibited by the radical changes 
wbich have taken place in her intra-Imperial relations, 
as between the Metropolis and the Dominions, striving 
at the same time to secure her colonial empire and 
looking to Japan for at least temporary assistance in 
this regard. 

3. The British Dominions, finding themselves on 
terms of competition with Japan, rather than of the 
possible cooperation sought by the mother-country, con- 
fronted by what appears to be an inevitability of serious 
conflicts with Japan on the questions of racial migra- 
tions and economic rivalry. 

4. China, over which Japan seeks to establish dom- 
inating control in order to use her as a powerful base 
for a possible carrying out of her own ambitions. 

5. Continental Europe, temporarily passive because 
of its internal economic situation and the rapidly re- 
emerging rivalry between France and Germany for 
continental hegemony, but vitally interested in the 
eastern developments. 

6. The United States, finding herself in a position 
with regard to Japan practically identical with that of 
the British Dominions, but faced at the same time by 
the realization that America alone can and must act as 
the stabilizing factor in this highly unstable situation. 



WORLD BALANCE OF POWERS 155 

These are tJie six principal factors in the world 
situation. Out of them the Washington Conference 
is making an attempt to create a world balance of 
powers. But here again, as in Paris in 1919, one factor 
is absent, which by its very absence makes the creation 
of a world balance of powers in Washington just as im- 
possible as its absence in Paris rendered untliinkable a 
re-creation there of a European balance. This absentee 
is Kussia, the seventh factor in the world situation. 

Russia is not represented at the Washington Con- 
ference, but it is impossible to strike out of the world 
situation her one-seventh of the earth's surface, which 
includes one-third of the total continent of Asia, or the 
massive strength of her teeming millions, or her cen- 
turies of active international history. All this gives 
her a place in the world balance of powers, the impor- 
tance of which can neither be gainsaid nor minimized 
with immunity. 

The existence of the Communist regime in Russia 
sets her apart from the rest of the world. The six 
factors in the world situation which we enumerated 
above are moved by national and international con- 
siderations. The present regime in Russia is actuated 
by what may be termed super-national considerations. 
It wants to change the whole fabric of political and 



156 RUSSIA m THE FAR EAST 

economic relations, and it has no vital or basic interest 
in relations among separate national units. Certainly 
it has no interest whatever in any efforts to reconstruct 
these relations on a different plan from that which 
exists today. 

From the story of the activities of the Third Inter- 
national in Asia generally, and of its more recent 
strategic moves in the Far East, as told in the chapters 
of this book devoted to those topics, it is quite apparent 
that, in the best case, individual and group arrange- 
ments among the various national units interest the 
leaders of Russian Communism only to the extent to 
which these arrangements and the consequent relations 
may be utilized by them for purposes of their own. 
Their tactics are plain. They are ready to make the 
most incongruous alliances, provided those alliances 
afford them an opportunity for stimulating discord and 
conflicts among nations. In this regard, their aims are 
inherently antagonistic to the aims which actuate the 
Washington Conference. 

But while this condition is the inevitable consequence 
of the very nature of Communism, there is no doubt 
that there are only two outcomes possible for the 
processes which the Moscow regime brings into being: 
either Communism will spread to the rest of the world, 



WORLD BALANCE OF POWERS 157 

or it will disappear in Russia herself. The national 
existence of the Communistic and the non-Communistic 
systems side by side is rendered impossible by the very 
nature of Communism; the Communist leaders them- 
selves are most emphatic in the statement of this fact. 
To the extent to which we believe that the second, rather 
than the first, of the two outcomes will be the fate of 
Russian Communism, it is a matter of certainty that 
Russia is bound to return to the status of a national 
state, rather than remain merely a base for the super- 
national activities of the Soviet Government and the 
Third International. Until that time comes, Russia 
cannot be a part of any world balance of powers ; but at 
the same time any such balance that may be established 
can be merely tentative, pending the determination of 
what will be Russia's role in it. 

By all signs of logic and all tests of politico-economic 
prognosis. Communism is bound to disappear in Russia. 
But the years of its existence and the far-flung nature 
of its activities cannot pass unnoticed in the history of 
the world. And nowhere will these effects be felt more 
than in the situation which is rapidly shaping itself in 
Asia under the influence of a number of important 
factors. 

The two outstanding results of the existence and the 



158 RUSSIA m THE FAR EAST 

activities of Russian Communism in Asia are as 
follows: First, the stimulus that these activities have 
given to military ambitions on the part of Japan ; and, 
second, the general agitation of the East against the 
West, for which the Communist propaganda and activ- 
ities have served as an active ferment. Both of these 
heritages of Russian Conununism the world has to face 
as a whole. 

It is hoped that the first of these conditions will he 
met at the Washington Conference. Allured by the 
possibilities which seemed to have opened before them 
for playing a lone hand in the field of imperialistic 
intrigue in the Far East by the disappearance of Im- 
perial Russia, Japan's militaristic elements eagerly 
seized the excuse given them by the Communist activi- 
ties in the Far East to push forward a bold policy of 
military imperialism. Under such circumstances a per- 
manent weakening of Russia would have been a most 
welcome contingency so far as Japan is concerned. 

But Japan's military imperialism may — and, it is 
hoped, will — evolve into virile economic energy, which 
would be a most welcome change for 'the peace of the 
world. In that case she will have no occasion to fear 
a regeneration of Russia, for economically she has more 
to gain from a peaceful cooperation with Siberia than 



WOELD BALANCE OF POWERS 159 

from military control there, backed by a policy of snarl- 
ing at the rest of the world and, incidentally, exhausting 
herself by an insupportable burden of naval armament. 
As for the revolutionary ferment in the East gener- 
ally, stimulated so powerfully by the agents of Com- 
munism, that may or may not develop into a serious 
menace. Sooner or later it must become clear to the 
peoples of the Orient, which are goaded into a blind and 
unreasoning fury by the Communist propaganda, that 
they have chosen very poor allies for the consummation 
of their national aims. Communism has no more 
sympathy with their fierce and revolutionary national- 
ism than it has with any other movement, not conform- 
ing to its own dogma. With the disappearance of 
Russian Communism much of this revolutionary activity 
in the East will, of necessity, have to subside. But 
there is no doubt that at least some of its effects wiU 
not wear off. The present fermentation will un- 
doubtedly crystallize, all through the Orient, forces that 
will be active in re^shaping the views and the policies 
of the various territories affected by the process. The 
development of these processes it is difficult to fore' 
cast at the present time with any degree of precision, 
but it would be most unwise to disregard them as very 
imminent possibilities, and certainly disastrous to fail 



160 EIJSSIA IN THE FAK EAST 

to lay a foundation for meeting them. For even now 
their general outlines are quite distinct: economic 
rivalry, from beyond which appear possible racial 
conflicts. 

The Washington Conference will not be able to solve 
all the problems that agitate the world. It may solve 
some. It may merely bring them out in more or less 
sharp relief. But there is one thing that the Confer- 
ence can do, and, it is hoped, will accomplish. It can 
lay down the fundamentals of an idealistic international 
polici/, which has been so characteristic of America's 
view of the world ever since she appeared as a factor 
in the world situation. Only such a policy, if con- 
sistently carried out, can really bring into the world 
situation, rendered complex and highly unstable by the 
war and its aftermath, the stabilizing influence that the 
United States can, and, no doubt, will exert. 

But to the extent to which this stabilized equilibrium 
of the world depends upon peace in the Far East, the 
United States will scarcely be able to exert a sufficiently 
powerful influence in this direction unless she has, 
working side by side with her, a strong, democratic 
Kussia, actuated by the same international idealism, 
working toward the same ends. And such a Kussia can 



WORLD BALANCE OF POWERS 161 

be neither the ImpeTial Russia, with its aggressive 
imperialism, nor the Soviet Russia, with its irrevocable 
pledge to a world revolution. It can be only the third 
Russia, the Russia that is really representative of the 
country's national character and shapes her policies in 
correspondence with the people's actual needs, and not 
in conformity with aggressive, predatory aims. 

Wha't reasons are there to believe that it will be such 
a Russia that will emerge out of the country's present 
trials ? These reasons lie in the tasks which a nation- 
ally reconstructed Russia will inevitably have to face, 
after she will have reacquired her political status as an 
organized state with a recognized government. 

The first of these tasks will be internal reconstruction. 
Too much has been torn down in the mad orgy of the 
various phases of her revolution. She must turn her 
attention to actual rebuilding, or else go down in a 
welter of utter chaos and ruin. She must have peace 
with her neighbors, if for no other reason than because 
she will have no strength to fight and build at the same 
time. And since these two conditions are fundamental, 
even apart from the natural inclinations of the Russian 
people, traditionally prone to idealism, reconstructed 
Russia is bound to be most sympathetic in her partici- 



162 EUSSIA IN THE FAK EAST 

pation in all intemational agreements looking toward 
universal peace, tlie reduction of the burden of arma- 
ments, etc. 

Russia's future is still before her. Her historic 
destiny has not yet run out. And it is most significant 
that the United States, the giant of the Western Hemi- 
sphere, should be so clear in her realization of this 
fact and so emphatic in expressing the need of concerted 
intemational action to conserve the national heritage 
of the temporarily prostrate giant of the Eastern Hemi- 
sphere. The world still needs, even more than ever, 
the stabilizing effect of Eussia's massive strength — 
this time on a truly world scale. The paths of Russia's 
and America's historic destiny have converged, and 
their common path is the road of the world peace. 



RUSSIA m THE FAR EAST 

APPENDIX 

TEXT OF TREATIES AND DOCUMENTS 



1. RUSSIA AND JAPAN. 

A, POLITICAL CONVENTION OF 1907. 

[Translation from the Official Text published by the 
Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.] 

The Government of His Majesty, the Emperor of 
All Russia, and the Government of His Majesty, the 
Emperor of Japan, desirous of strengthening the peace- 
ful and neighborly relations so happily established 
between Russia and Japan, and of removing all cause 
of misunderstandings in the future between the two 
Empires, have agreed to the following: 

Article 1. 

Each of the High Contracting Parties obligates itself 
to respect the territorial integrity of the other and all 

163 



164 RUSSIA IN THE FAR EAST 

the rights accruing to each of the Parties by virtue of 
all treaties, conventions, and contracts, existing between 
them and China, copies of which have been exchanged 
by the High Contracting Parties (in so far as these 
rights are compatible with the principle of the general 
equality of rights) ; by virtue of the Portsmouth Treaty 
of August 23 (September 5), 1905 ; as well as by virtue 
of all special agreements concluded between Russia and 
Japan. 

Article 2. 

Both High Contracting Parties recognize the inde- 
pendence and the territorial integi^ity of the Chinese 
Empire and the principle of the general equality of 
rights with regard to trade and industry in that Empire 
for all nations, and undertake to preserve and defend 
the status quo and the above-mentioned principle by all 
peaceful means at their disposal. 

In witness of this, the signatories hereto, properly 
authorized by their respective Governments, have affixed 
their signatures and seals to this Convention. 

Concluded in St. Petersburg, on July 17 (30), 1907, 
which corresponds to the 30th day of the 7th month of 
the 40th year of Meidji. 

IZVOLSKT. 
MOTONO. 



APPENDIX 165 

B. SECKET TKEATY OF 1916. 

[Translation from the text published in the Gazette of 

the Provisional W orhmerirPeasants Government, 

December 8 (21), 1917.] 

The Russian Imperial Government and the Japanese 
Imperial Government, for the purpose of further 
strengthening their close friendship established between 
them by the Secret Agreements of July 17 (30), 1907; 
June 21 (July 4), 1910; and June 25 (July 8), 1912, 
have agreed to supplement the above-mentioned Agree- 
ments by the following Articles: 

Article 1. 

Both High Contracting Parties recognize that the 
vital interests of each of them demand the preservation 
of China from political domination by any third 
power holding inimical aims against Russia or Japan 
and therefore mutually obligate themselves in the future, 
every time when circumstances would make it necessary, 
to enter with each other into frank and sincere relations 
based upon complete trust, in order to take together all 
measures necessary for the prevention of the possibility 
of the establishment (in China) of such a state of 
affairs. 

Article 2. 

In case that, as a result of measures taken by mutual 
consent by Russia and Japan on the basis of the pre- 



166 RUSSIA IN THE FAR EAST 

ceding Article, there should come about a declaration of 
war against one of the High Contracting Parties by any 
third power contemplated in Article 1 of this Agree- 
ment, the other High Contracting Party must come to 
the assistance of its ally at the latter's first request; 
each of the High Contracting Parties hereby obligates 
itself, in case of such a contingency, not to conclude 
peace with the common enemy without the preliminary 
consent to it of its ally. 

Article 3. 

The conditions under which each of the High Con- 
tracting Parties shall render armed assistance to the 
other in accordance with the preceding Article, as well 
as the methods by means of which such assistance shall 
be rendered, must be determined by common agreement 
of the proper authorities of both High Contracting 
Parties. 

Article 4. 

It must be especially noted that neither the one nor 
the other of the High Contracting Parties shall consider 
itself bound by Article 2 of this Agreement to render 
its ally armed assistance * to the extent to which it itself 
shall be given guarantees by its own allies that they 
would render it assistance corresponding in scop© to 
the seriousness of the impending conflict. 

* The word "except" is obviously omitted in the Russian text, from 
which this translation has been made. — L. P. 



1 



APPEIjTDIX 167 

Article 5. 

The present Agreement goes into effect from tJie 
moment of its signing and will remain in force until 
July 1 (14), 1921. In case neither of the High Con- 
tracting Parties would consider it necessary to declare 
its unwillingness to prolong this Agreement twelve 
months before its expiration, the same shall continue 
in force until one year shall have elapsed from the 
moment of the declaration of one of the High Con- 
tracting Parties concerning its renouncing. 

Article 6. 

The present Agreement must remain a profound 
secret for all, except the two High Contracting Parties. 

In witness of this, the representatives of the two 
Parties have set their signatures and seals to this Agree- 
ment in the city of Petrograd, on June 20 (July 3), 
1916, which corresponds to the following Japanese date: 
the third day of the seventh month of the fifth year of 
the rule of Taisse. 

Sazonov. 

MOTONO. 



168 RUSSIA IN THE FAR EAST 

C. SECRET TELEGRAM FROM THE RUSSIAN 

AMBASSADOR AT TOKYO REGARDING 

THE LANSING-ISHII AGREEMENT. 

[Translation from tlie Gazette of the Provisional Work- 

menrPeasants Government^ December 

2 (15), 1917.] 

To the Minister: October 19, 1917. 

Having invited me to call on bim today, the Minister 
of Foreign Affairs communicated to me confidentially, 
but at the same time quite officially, tbe text (trans- 
mitted by me in telegram No. 2) of the Notes wbicli 
will be exchanged in Washington on November 2 or 3, 
new style, between the American Secretary of State 
and Viscount Ishii. A similar communication was 
made today to the British Ambassador here. The text 
of the Notes will be communicated in a few days pri- 
vately for their information to the French and the 
Italian ambassadors. The publication will take place, 
probably, on November 7. Until that time, the Min- 
ister requests that this communication be kept secret. 

In communicating to me the text of the Notes, 
Viscount Motono stated that he had received it in its 
final form only yesterday by telegraph from Washington, 
and since Viscount Ishii must leave in the evening of 
the day after tomorrow, in spite of the (desire) on the 
part of the Japanese Government to acquaint itself with 



APPENDIX 169 

the opinion of the Russian Government on this matter 
before the signing of the Notes, the affixing of the sig- 
natures could not be postponed. The Minister hopes 
that no blame will be attached to him in Petrograd, 
especially since he is certain that the Japanese-American 
Agreement in question cannot meet with any opposition 
on our part. Viscount Motono mentioned then that in 

the conclusion * among other things, 

with the view of putting an end to the German intrigues, 
directed toward inciting distrust between Japan and the 
United States of North America, and thus show most 
clearly to China that there is between these two powers 
complete agreement with regard to China, which, there- 
fore, should not expect to gain anything for herself by 
playing them against each other. 

To my question whether he does not apprehend mis- 
understandings in the future that may spring from a 
difference of interpretation on the part of Japan and 
of the United States of the phrases "special position'' 
and "special interests" of Japan in China, Viscount 

Motono replied that * Neverthcr 

less, the impression produced on me by the Minister's 
words was to the effect that he realizes the possibility 
of misunderstandings also in the future, but considers 
that in such a case Japan would have at her disposal 



* Omission in the original, indicated by dots. It is most regret- 
table that the Bolsheviki, in publishing the text of this telegram, 
omitted such obviously important portions of it. — L. P. 



iro RUSSIA IN" THE FAR EAST 

better means for applying in practice her interpretation, 
than would the United States. 

Krupensky. 



2>. CHICHERm'S NOTE ON THE EAR EAST. 

[Translation from the Russian text published in the 

Moscow Izvestiya, June 3, 1921.] Note addressed 

to the Governments of Great Britain, 

France, and Italy, dated June 1, 1921. 

The struggle of the toiling masses of Russia for peace 
and for the right of disposing independently of their 
own fate has entered upon a stage of new trials. Having 
gloriously repulsed, by gigantic effort and miracles of 
heroism, the combined attacks of the counter-revolution 
from within and of the majority of foreign powers from 
without, the toiling masses have won the right to govern 
themselves by means of their own Soviets of workmen 
and peasants. They had hoped to assure for themselves 
a free opportunity to devote their forces to an internal 
reconstruction of Russia, in collaboration with other 
countries for mutual interests and for the achievement 
of the economic aims that confront them. 

Unfortunately, their hopes have been blasted by a 
new attempt at external interference and a new coordi- 
nated attack of the Russian counter-revolution and the 
foreign Governments. Under the protection of the 



APPENDIX 171 

Japanese bayonets, the white gnardists of Vladivostok, 
who constitute but an insignificant clique, suddenly- 
seized authority in that city. A similar coaip d'etat has 
been effected in Nikolsk-Ussuriysk and in other local- 
ities occupied by the Japanese. Thus, the most open 
sort of counter-revolution has been installed by the 
Japanese armed forces in the territory of their occu- 
pation. 

The Russian masses of peasants and workmen in the 
Far East have done everything in their power to obtain 
an acceptable peace with Japan. They have organized 
a separate democratic republic in order to make this 
peace possible, and the independent Far Eastern Re- 
public, with this in view, signed an agreement with 
Japan, which, under this condition, was ready to with- 
draw her troops from this territory and to return free- 
dom to the Russian popular masses of, the Far East. 
In their name, the Government of their Republic con- 
stantly strove toward the consummation of a complete 
agreement with Japan, in order to live with her in 
peace and in friendly and neighborly relations. But 
the Japanese Government replied to their peaceful 
efforts with a new cruel attack upon their internal 
freedom and their external independence. 

The bitterest foes of the Russian popular masses, the 
extreme reactionaries, whose obvious object is to conquer 
Siberia with the aid of the Japanese bayonets and then 
become there the subservient agents of the Japanese 



172 RUSSIA IN THE FAR EAST 

conquerors, have, by violence, seized authority in those 
places, in which the Japanese armed forces are in con- 
trol. However, this first test step on the road of the 
conquest of Siberia is not an isolated fact. The Jap- 
anese Government distributes among its own capitalists 
the fishing rights in the waters of Kamchatka, which 
rights have hitherto belonged to the Russian coopera- 
tives and to others of our citizens. Japan has intro- 
duced her own control there and has seized the revenues 
accruing from the Kamchatka fisheries ; this constitutes 
an act of arbitrary seizure and plunder of Russia's 
wealth, which the Russian Government considers a vio- 
lation of the elementary rights of the popular masses 
of Russia. At the same time, with the aid of Japanese 
armed forces, the remnants of the counter-revolutionary 
bands of Semenov and Kappel retain their positions on 
the boundaries of China and continue to occupy the 
Chinese Eastern Railroad. Only with the assistance 
of Japanese auxiliary troops are Ungem's bands able 
to terrorize Mongolia and prepare their attacks against 
the Russian Republic. The agents of the Japanese 
imperialism penetrate even into Central Asia, attempt- 
ing to start insurrections therei, while the emissaries of 
the Turkestan counter-revolutionary elements gather in 
Japan in order to work out their plans in common. 

The Russian Republic has, on a number of occasions, 
offered peace to the Japanese Government, and yet, in 
spite of all of Russia's efforts toward peace, the Jap- 



APPENDIX 173 

anese Government is at the present time the initiator 
of a new interventionalist campaign, directed against 
the rule of the Russian workmen and peasants. 

The Soviet Government, expressing the will of the 
Russian masses, warns the Japanese Government that 
the great popular masses of Russia, having taken their 
fate into their own hands and having repelled all the 
attacks of their enemies, will he ahle to conduct vic- 
toriously this new struggle, and will make those who 
have attacked them feel their strength more than suf- 
ficiently. 

However, the responsihility for these inimical acts 
cannot be laid at the door of the Japanese Government 
alone. There are proofs to the effect that the French 
Government, in its irreconcilable enmity toward the 
rule of workmen and peasants in Russia, is one of the 
active instigators of this new interventionalist campaign 
and takes part in Japan's plans of conquest in Siberia. 
Soviet Russia cannot but consider all the powers of the 
Entente morally responsible for this new link in the 
chain of intervention, which is a product of the collec- 
tive workmanship of the Entente powers. It considers 
this on the part of the British Government as a mani- 
festation of inimical activity, entirely out of keeping 
with the Anglo-Russian Agreement. 

The Russian Government protests most energetically 
against these acts, directed against Russia herself or 
through the Far Eastern Republic which is friendly 



174 RUSSIA m THE FAR EAST 

with her as an intermediary stage, and retains the right 
to draw from this the inevitable conclusions. 

The People's Commissary of Fokeign Affaibs, 
Chicherin. 



3. RUSSIA AND CHINA, 

A, THE KUSSO-MONGOLIAlSr-CHINESE 
AGREEMENT OF 1915. 

[Text of Articles 1 to 8.] 

Article 1. 

Outer Mongolia recognizes the Chinese-Russian 

Declaration and the Notes exchanged between China 

and Russia on the 5th day of the 11th month of the 

2nd year of the Republic of China (October 23, 1913). 

Article 2. 
Outer Mongolia recognizes China's suzerainty, China 
and Russia recognize the autonomy of Outer Mongolia, 
forming part of Chinese territory. 

Article 3. 
Autonomous Mongolia has no right to conclude inter- 
national treaties with foreign powers respecting political 
and territorial questions. As regards questions of a 
political and territorial nature in Outer Mongolia, the 
Chinese Government engages to conform to Article 2 of 
the Note exchanged between China and Russia on the 



APPENDIX 175 

5tli day of the lltli month of the 2iid year of the 
Kepuhlio of China (October 23, 1913). 

Article 4. 
The title ^'Bogdo Cheptsun Damba Ku-tukh-tu Khan 
of Outer Mongolia" is conferred by the President of 
the Republic of China. The calendar of the Republic 
as well as the Mongol calendar of cyclical signs are to 
be used in official documents. 

Article 5. 
China and Russia, in conformity with Articles 2 and 
3 of the Sino-Russian Declaration of the 5th day of 
the 11th month of the 2nd year of the Republic of 
China (October 23, 1913), recognize the exclusive right 
of the Autonomous Government of Outer Mongolia to 
attend to all the affairs of its internal administration 
and to conclude with foreign powers international 
treaties and agreements respecting all questions of a 
commercial and industrial nature concerning autono- 
mous Mongolia. 

Article 6. 

In conformity with the same Article 3 of the Decla- 
ration, China and Russia engage not to interfere in the 
system of autonomous internal administration existing 
in Outer Mongolia. 

Article 7. 

The military escort of the Chinese dignitary at Urga 
provided for by Article 3 of the above-mentioned Decla- 



176 RUSSIA IN THE FAR EAST 

ration is not to exceed two hundred men. The military 
escorts of his assistants at Uliassutai^ at Kobdo, and at 
Mongolian-Kyakhta are not to exceed fifty men each. 
If, by agreement with the Autonomous Government of 
Outer Mongolia, Assistants of the Chinese Dignitary 
are appointed in other localities in Outer Mongolia, 
their military escorts are not to exceed fifty men each. 

Article 8. 

The Imperial Government of Russia is not to send 
more than one hundred and fifty men as consular 
guard for its representative at Urga. The military 
escorts of the Imperial consulate and vice-consulates of 
Russia, which have already been established or which 
may be established by agreement with the Autonomous 
Government of Outer Mongolia, are not to exceed fifty 
men each. 



B. APPEAL OF THE PROVISIONAL REVO- 
LUTIONARY GOVERNMENT OF 
MONGOLIA. 

[Translation from the Russian text published in the 
Moscow Izvestiya, August 10, 1921.] 

The People's Revolutionary Government of Mon- 
golia addresses to the Government of the Russian 
Socialist Federated Soviet Republic a request not to 
withdraw the Soviet troops from the territory of Mon- 



APPENDIX 177 

golia until the complete removal of the menace from 
the common enemy, who is now seeking reinforcements 
in the Eastern Steppes. The People's Revolutionary 
Government finds it necessary to address this request 
to the Government of the R. S. F. S. R., because the 
Mongolian Government has not as yet completed the 
organization of the apparatus of the new authority. 
The presence of the Soviet troops is dictated by cir- 
cumstances, its purpose being to preserve the security 
of the territory of Mongolia and of the frontiers of the 
R. S. F. S. R. The People's Provisional Revolutionary 
Government of Mongolia is confident that the Govern- 
ment of the R. S. F. S. R. will realize the seriousness 
of the situation and the common interest in the defeat 
of the common enemy, and will accede to this request. 
Members of tpie People's Revoltjtionaey 
Government of Mongolia, 

Bono. 

Bolyuk-Sai-Khan. 



C. CHICHERm'S REPLY TO THE APPEAL 

OF THE PEOPLE'S REVOLUTIONTARY 

GOVERNMENT OF MONGOLIA. 

[Translation from the Russian text published in the 
Moscow Izvestiya, August 12, 1921.] 

The Russian Soviet Government, in alliance with the 
Government of the Far Eastern Republic, ordered its 



178 RUSSIA IN THE FAR EAST 

troops, side by side with tlie revolutionary army of the 
Provisional Government of Mongolia, to deal a crushing 
blow to their common enemy the Tsarist General, 
Ungem, who has subjected the Mongolian people to 
unprecedented enslavement and oppression, violated the 
rights of autonomous Mongolia, at the same time threat- 
ening the security of Soviet Russia and the inviolability 
of the territory of the fraternal Far Eastern Republic. 
The appearance of the Soviet troops on the territory 
of autonomous Mongolia has for its sole aim the destruc- 
tion of the common enemy, thus removing the danger 
which threatens the Soviet territory, and safeguarding 
the free development and self-determination of autono- 
mous Mongolia. 

Welcoming the first steps of the People's Revolu- 
tionary Govermnent of Mongolia on the road toward 
creating a new order in its country, now freed from the 
enemy by common effort, the Russian Government notes 
with great satisfaction the Appeal addressed to it by 
the People's Revolutionary Government of Mongolia, 
which appeal expresses the wish that the Soviet troops 
should not be removed from ihe territory of Mongolia 
until the complete destruction of the common enemy 
shall have been encompassed. Considering this pro- 
posal a manifestation of the steadfast, close and friendly 
bonds which unite the liberated people of Mongolia 
with the workmen and peasants of Russia who have 
thrown off the yoke of the exploiters, the Russian Gov- 



APPENDIX 179 

eminent declares that it recognizes fully the seriousness 
of the situation and the common interest of Eussia and 
Mongolia in the destruction of the common enemy. 
Having firmly decided to withdraw its troops from the 
territory of autonomous Mongolia, which is hound to 
Soviet Eussia only by the ties of mutual friendship and 
common interests, just as soon as the menace to the free 
development of the Mongolian people and to the secur- 
ity of the Eussian Eepublic and of the Far Eastern 
Eepublic shall have been removed, the Eussian Govern- 
ment, in complete harmony with the People's Eevolu- 
tionary Government of Mongolia, notes that this moment 
has not yet arrived. In response to the request addressed 
to it by the People's Eevolutionary Government of 
Mongolia, the Eussian Government announces its deci- 
sion to give this request complete satisfaction. 

The Eussian Government is convinced that, in the 
near future, by the united efforts of the two peoples 
who are struggling against the violence of the Tsarist 
generals and against foreign oppression and exploitation, 
the free development of the Mongolian people will be 
secured on the basis of its autonomy, and that, as a 
result of the organization of the apparatus of popular 
revolutionary authority in Mongolia, such authority will 
be definitely established and firmly secured there. 

The People's Commissar of Foreign Affairs, 
Chichebin. 
August 10, 1921. 



180 EUSSIA IN THE FAR EAST 

D. SOVIET ITOTE ON CHUSTESE-MON- 
GOLIAIST EELATIONS. 

[Translation from the Eussian text published in the 
Moscow Izvestiya, September 17, 1921.] 

Telegram sent by the People's Commissar of Foreign 
Affairs to the President of the Council of Min- 
isters and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the 
People's Revolutionary Government of Mongolia, 
Bodo, dated September 14, 1921: 

The toiling masses of Russia and the Workmen- 
Peasants Government which expresses their will greeted 
with joy the establishment of the People's Revolutionary 
Government of Mongolia and the liberation of the 
friendly Mongolian people from a foreign yoke and 
from the bloody rule of the former Tsarist General, 
Ungem. The glorious Red army of the Russian Soviet 
Republic, together with the troops of the friendly and 
allied Far Eastern Republic, hand in hand with the 
people's revolutionary army of Mongolia, fought against 
the enslavers of the Mongolian people, who are at the 
same time enemies of the workmen and peasants of 
Russia, and assisted in the liberation of the Mongolian 
people from oppression. 

The Russian Government expresses its gratitude to 
the People's Revolutionary Government of Mongolia for 
the friendly feelings toward the toiling masses of 



APPENDIX 181 

Russia and toward the Soviet Government and for the 
confidence in them, expressed in the l^ote of citizen 
Bodo of September 10. The Russian Government 
shares the conviction of the People's Revolutionary 
Government of Mongolia as to the need of establishing 
peaceful and business-like relations between Mongolia 
and China. It hopes that the steps it is taking in this 
direction will lead to favorable results in the near 
future, provided the Mongolian people at the same time 
applies its right to &elf-determination. 

More than once has the Russian Government ap- 
proached the Government of China, both directly and 
through the representatives of the Far Eastern Republic 
who were in communication with the latter, with offers 
to begin negotiations on this question. In the near 
future the Russian Government expects to enter into 
permanent relations with the Government of China by 
means of a trade delegation which is being sent to 
Peking. 

The Russian Government notes with joy the readiness 

of the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Government 

to enter into negotiations with China on this question, 

as expressed in citizen Bodo's N"ote of September 10. 

It hopes that the Chinese Government will receive 

favorably this offer, which it will present in the spirit 

of good offices, in order to remove the possibility of a 

conflict between the peoples and the governments of 

Mongolia and of China. ^ 

^ Chicheein. 



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